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INFORMATION TO USERS While the most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this manuscript, the quality of the reproduction is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted. For example: • Manuscript pages may have indistinct print. In such cases, the best available copy has been filmed. • Manuscripts may not always be complete. In such cases, a note will indicate that it is not possible to obtain missing pages. • Copyrighted material may have been removed from the manuscript. In such cases, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, and charts) are photographed by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each oversize page is also filmed as one exposure and is available, for an additional charge, as a standard 35mm slide or as a 17"x 23" black and white photographic print. Most photographs reproduce acceptably on positive microfilm or microfiche but lack the clarity on xerographic copies made from the microfilm. For an additional charge, 35mm slides of C"x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations that cannot be reproduced satisfactorily by xerography. Order Number 8719185 Modern traditions of the essay White, Laurie Lake, Ph.D. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1987 UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 PLEASE NOTE: In all cases this material has been filmed in the best possible way from the available copy. Problems encountered with this document have been identified here with a check mark V . 1. Glossy photographs or pages 2. Colored illustrations, paper or print 3. Photographs with dark background t/ 4. Illustrations are poor copy 5. Pages with black marks, not original copy 6. Print shows through as there is text on both sides of page 7. Indistinct, broken or small print on several pages \/ 8. Print exceeds margin requirements 9. Tightly bound copy with print lost in spine 10. Computer printout pages with indistinct print 11. Page(s) lacking when material received, and not available from school or author. 12. Page(s) seem to be missing in numbering only as text follows. 13. Two pages numbered 207 . jext follows. 14. Curling and wrinkled pages 15. Dissertation contains pages with print at a slant, filmed as received 16. Other University Microfilms International MODERN TRADITIONS OF THE ESSAY by Laurie Lake White A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 1987 Approved by APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dissertation Adviser. 7^ Committee Members. 0amc £ lli n„rk At, 1127 Date of Acceptance by Committee TU/wX* xn iixrr Date of Final Oral Examination ii WHITE, LAURIE LAKE, Ph.D. Modern Traditions of the Essay. (1987) Directed by Dr. Walter H. Beale. 220 pp. Critical interest in the essay as a genre has increased in recent years with the rise of non-fiction studies focusing on the essay as literary art. The argument of this dissertation is that the essay is best seen as a form of rhetoric, and Walter Beale°s theory of discourse provides a theoretical model for this view. Categorizing the essay as rhetorical accounts for the sermonic aim of the form and its protean nature. The essay's rhetorical aim is connected with the spirit of skepticism which has informed it from its incep­ tion. Both Montaigne and Bacon were skeptics, although their anti-dogmatism took different forms. Too, skepticism has been associated with rhetorical practice since Cicero. The weighing of probabilities, the willing suspension of judgment, and the examination of different sides of a question are the characteristics of rhetoricians and skeptics. They are the characteristics, too, of the essay which is, by name and reputation, only a "try," not a system. In our own day, the popularity of the essay form attests to a new age of skepticism, and a revived interest in rhetorical discourse. The major portion of this work is a study of five modern writers whose essays vary from op-eds to book reviews to autobiographical narratives. By studying modern practitioners of the two streams of the essay tradition—the followers of Bacon and Montaigne —we can see the various forms that the persuasive aim of the essay can assume. The rhetorical analyses of three Baconian essayists whose work is characteristically suasory—George Will, Paul Fussell, and Paul Theroux—reveal the voice of the aphorist and sophisticated teacher. On the other hand, analyses of two followers of Montaigne—Lewis Thomas and Joan Didion—reveal their reliance on self-depre­ cation and lyricism in making their points. All five of these essayists write reflective- exploratory essays, the oldest category of the essay, the closest to poetic discourse, the most difficult to categor­ ize, and the most volatile. By studying their essays we can see the subtlety of their rhetoric and the connections of their work with deliberative argument as well as fiction and poetry. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my adviser, Dr. Walter Beale, for his generous help and advice. Dr. Beale has encouraged and supported me in this project with his intelligence, good humor, and guidance. His knowledge of and enthusiasm for his subject have persuaded me and many others of the power and fascination of rhetorical studies. He is a wonderful rhetorician. I also would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Randolph Bulgin, Dr. Keith Cushman, Dr. James Evans, and Dr. William Goode. Each has helped me in the years I have been in the graduate program and all have been scholarly models and friends. Finally, I would like to thank my family. My husband, Ben, and my children, Kathryn and Benjamin, have been amazingly patient, cheerful, and loving throughout the many months I have worked on this dissertation. My brother, Ralph, and sister-in-law, Anne, have provided practical advice and a humorous perspective. My parents, Frances and Ralph Lake, have encouraged me as they have done always. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page APPROVAL PAGE ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii CHAPTER ONE. THE TRUE ESSAY 1 TWO. SKEPTICISM AND THE SPIRIT OF THE ESSAY 27 THREE. APHORIST, EXPERT, AND JUDGE: THREE BACONIAN ESSAYISTS 62 I. George Will, the Aphorism, and the Op-Ed Column. 70 II. Paul Fussell, the Expert Voice and the Review/Essay 94 III. Paul Theroux, Moral Judgment, and Travel Essays .......... 116 FOUR. MYSELF I PORTRAY: THE MONTAIGNESQUE SPIRIT IN THE ESSAYS OF LEWIS THOMAS AND JOAN DIDION 139 I. Lewis Thomas and Lyrical Science. 150 II. Joan Didion and the Impersonal Confession. ...... 178 A CONCLUDING ESSAY (IN THE CONTEMPORARY MANNER). 207 BIBLIOGRAPHY 213 APPENDIX: "DOONESBURY" CARTOONS 220 iv 1 CHAPTER ONE THE TRUE ESSAY "The simplest and safest definition of the essay is that it is the kind of composition produced by an essayist." —J.Be Priestley Debates about the essay seem curiously old-fashioned in comparison with other literary discussions. Critics still engage in heated arguments over the constitution of the "true essay" long after they have relaxed generic require­ ments for other kinds of literature. Even the language they use is reminiscent of an earlier, more dogmatic criticism. In a recent article, for example, Richard Chadbourne asserts that American studies of the essay "confirm the belief, hardly new, since many an essayist and student of the essay have held it intuitively without arguing for it, that the essay is indeed a branch of what the Greeks called poetry . and what we would call creative or imaginative literature." On the other hand, Quebecois studies of the genre reveal a "deplorable [underlining mine] tendency to equate the essay with non-fiction" (Chadbourne 138, 146). Mary E. Rucker in a 1975 article, "The Literary Essay and the Modern Temper," wonders "just how far may the tradition­ al essay as it was shaped by Montaigne adapt to a dynamic social order without becoming the polemic article?" (323). 2 This sort of scolding of a "deplorably" wayward genre was common among critics in the twenties discussing the experiments of Faulkner, Eliot, and Woolf. But critics and readers as well grew accustomed to the anarchies of poets and novelists, and gave up attempting to hold authors to strict generic requirements. Not so with the essay. The sort of narrow definition insisted upon by Charles Whitmore in a 1921 article, "The Field of the Essay," is echoed in the most recent articles and dissertations on the essay genre. According to Whitmore, the only "true" essay is the literary or "familiar" essay. He despairs of being able to restrict the term—"the free and easy use has gone on too long to be easily discarded"—but hopes to distinguish "the true essay from the study, the portrait, and the sketch" (564). In our day, the emotional defense of a genre is uncommon, but in this case it is understandable. Literary critics wish to "save" the essay from the reviled categories of the temporal, the unimaginative, the polemical—in other words, from the netherworld of "non-fiction prose." Their efforts, however have resulted in a reductive narrowing of critical comment on the essay. Even the most liberal critics, such as the deconstructionists who have enlarged the essay category to include literary criticism, resort in most cases to precious argument and hair-splitting when discussing the essay. 3 Critical confusion about the nature of the essay is a reflection of the larger confusion about the nature of "non-fiction" prose.

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