In “The Modern Essay”, Woolf theorizes on the meaning of art and analyzes how essays have changed as an art form to determine what constitutes a good essay.
The first point that Virginia Woolf makes is that an essay should not aim to arouse but rather to please. When we grab a book from a shelf, “the desire which impels us… is simply to receive pleasure,” to which purpose essays “lap us about and draw [their curtains] around the world.” At first, Woolf almost seems to be saying that reading is merely meant as an escape from all that is unpleasant in the world; a purposeful rejection of the truth. But we realize that what Woolf truly means is that, by drawing its “curtain” around us, we ignore the extraneous in favor of concentrating on the greater truth or sentiment that the essay attempts to convey: we are more fully enveloped in an experience, more receptive a certain truth, and enriched with a new revelation. A proper essay, as such, begets “an intensification of life” and we wake, “with every faculty alert, in the sun of pleasure.” Art, then, is not mere creative expression, screaming or preaching into the void for the sake of oneself – it is more often a purposeful exchange of ideas, with the clearly defined roles of writer and reader. For an essay to effect such power, the writer must write knowing that their words will not be their own the moment they are read by others.
Essays should not aim to appeal to petty emotions of outrage, nor should an essay be dogmatic. An essay must be crafted such that “not a fact juts out, not a dogma tears the surface of the texture.” Again, this may seem contradictory: how can an essay convey the truth without conveying facts? It is not that an essay cannot have facts, but that, being a highly crafted work, should impart the truth without preaching the truth. “Literal truth-telling and finding fault,” are impurities, “deposits of extraneous matter.” Say that a piece speaks against the immorality of a murder in which black and white are clearly defined. The reader is clearly on the side of good, and they are satisfied in feeling that they have proved themselves more moral than the criminal the essay is condemning. That is not a meaningful essay in any sense: it does not reveal anything new, lines are distinctly drawn, and no actual questions are answered. An essay can challenge, but it must not provoke. Rather, it lures the reader into a space where they question their preconceived notions than attack the reader’s opinions: remember, writing is for the sake of communication, for “our good and rather for eternity than the March number of the FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.” In a similar vein, an author’s personality is insufficient if they lack the tools to communicate their personality: “it is no use being charming, virtuous, or even learned and brilliant into the bargain, unless… you fulfill [literature’s] first condition—to know how to write.” Because literature is simply another form of communication, one cannot simply write whatever they like and then hope that their voice itself is strong enough to appeal to readers. The writer must communicate slyly, subtly. The writer who sensationalizes or preaches fails to understand what essay writing is.
Furthermore, an essay must stay with the reader. The words that we read are friends that we carry around, “you have not finished with it because you have read it, any more than friendship is ended because it is time to part.” Literature should have a constant impact on our lives because the writer has the intent to impart a message that they know is relevant.
Books may have the mundane, due to the flexibility accorded by their length, but an essay lacks the space to accommodate such descriptions – writers must be economical. Facts still maintain important backbones, however, to the fancy that an author creates: “Truth will give [a scene] authority.” Put simply, Woolf is repeating the common refrain to “show not tell.” We as readers, are not told what to feel, but experience through vibrant description a lasting “vision.” Through their writing, we are taken into the depths of philosophy or buoyed up to feel the brush of air against our cheeks as we soar through the sky. Details are essential to the image that the author creates. The scaffolding of the essay, they are the medium through which the author’s conviction in a private secret or grand truth is conveyed.
One of my favorite essays is “A Drugstore in Winter” precisely because it evokes such emotion through description. Bookshelves are treasure troves waiting to be mined; Jane Eyre is a “browning, bitter miracle”, even housekeeping magazines are feasts for Ozick to devour and ruminate over. Ozick does nothing but describe, but as she lists off all of the stories she has read that we also distinctly recognize – Alice in Wonderland, Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist – we cannot help but look again at the volumes that align our libraries’ shelves and wonder at the accumulated knowledge that rests between them. Ozick does not need to prove her devotion to literature because we already know, through her recollections, that she lives and breathes literature. That is why, when she paints this description of herself at the end, we are deeply moved.
“and then one day you find yourself leaning here, writing at that selfsame round glass table salvaged from the Park View Pharmacy-writing this, an impossibility, a summary of how you came to be where you are now, and where, God knows, is that? Your hair is whitening, you are a well of tears, what you meant to do (beauty and justice) you have not done, papa and mama are under the earth, you live in panic and dread, the future shrinks and darkens, stories are only vapor, your inmost craving is for nothing but an old scarred pen, and what, God knows, is that?”
By establishing the importance of literature in her life through varifold descriptions, Ozick effectively emphasizes the isolation that she felt as she wrote the essay. Her treasure-writing seems inconsequential after all the loss she has endured, but is a difficulty that all writers must face. What is the effect of our writing? Will our words really matter? Only God knows.
Although description is important in conveying the meaning of an essay, Woolf cautions against the overembellishment of the ordinary. An author attempting to search for meaning in places where most would not runs the risk of creating meaning where there is none.
One of Woolf’s most interesting points in “The Modern Essay” is her reflections on the essay as a changing art form. It shows a deep awareness of her work beyond herself, and of literature as a form of societal impact. She notes how the essay once spanned tens of pages but in her time has been reduced to a readily consumable snippet only a few pages long. She does not condemn this change but acknowledges that art necessarily fits into whatever mold society has created for it. In her era of consumption and immediacy, people cannot sit down to mull over a work tens of pages long. “Good” writing is sacrificed for the convenience of “busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening.” The writer is consequently influenced by the reader’s demands. Here is the unfortunate capitalistic aspect of the enterprise: writing is communication, and for a writer to be heard, they must have an audience to speak with. They must write not fully according to their own wishes, but always slightly hampered by the needs of their listeners to ensure their words may travel the full distance possible.
Woolf once again displays a remarkable awareness of her craft beyond itself, and in relation to the world at large, by then subverting her conclusion to reveal a positive aspect of modern essays. Because the modern essay needs to be broadly applicable to the masses in order to sell, it can speak truth for a collective “we” rather than the individual “I.” However, this comes at the expense of alienating those experiences which are intensely personal. When an essay focuses too much on appealing to everybody, it lacks appeal to a reader who wants to feel intensely about their individual unique experiences. Woolf doesn’t seem to uphold the modern essay over the former. Instead, she paints us a scene to display the benefits of the former: the “I” – distraught because it is unable to find a kindred spirit in the discourse of society – runs to the trees and “rejoices in a single blade of grass or a solitary potato.” The line just quoted can be read in two ways depending on the reader. The “I” may be introspective and thoughtful, being able to take pleasure in even small blades of grass. On the other hand, the “I” may be silly, rejoicing in the company of a “solitary potato.” Woolf, in this way, invites the reader into conversation with her. Rather than making the final judgment herself, she allows the reader to decide whether the “I” should be pitied or respected. The essay becomes a place of active discourse rather than a pulpit from which one preaches.
Every essay in this collection similarly contributes to a broader discourse that the editor invites us to participate in. In the previous essay, “The Patron and the Crocus”, Woolf explores similar themes about what constitutes a good essay and the difficulties of writing as a profession. She answers questions that she poses, and almost seems to come to a definitive conclusion, but ends with a question: “…how to choose rightly? How to write well?” She has provided some direction for the reader, but by inserting this line as the conclusion, it is as if she is saying, “I may have given you an answer, but you must continue to ponder and struggle for yourself.” By toying with our expectations in such a way, Woolf’s essays then reflect her conviction to make writing an interactive experience rather than a passive one.
Woolf ends “The Modern Essay” by writing that an essay “must draw its curtain round us but it must be a curtain that shuts us in, not out.” It must shut us in, ironically, because shutting us in will allow us to ponder more deeply the specific truths that we observe in that confined space. However, we cannot be shut to the extent that our worldview becomes myopic. An essay, then, is an otherworldly space existing separate from reality. By immersing ourselves in it, we temporarily exit the world to enter a plane of heightened sensation and feeling what appears to be the purest truth itself. As we proceed in the collection, we cannot help but wonder what secrets Woolf will share with us.