All schoolchildren went through this: the essay is an obligatory component of the literary educational process. Since school, many have developed a perverse and not quite extensive idea of this literary and philosophical genre.
Author's position
An essay, as a literary and philosophical genre, is a small essay, a note on a given topic. The main distinguishing feature of this genre is the author's freedom of self-expression, whose opinion, nevertheless, does not claim to be authoritative and the only true one.
It is also noteworthy that there are no rules and frames along which the text is built. In this genre, the dominant role is played by the principle of free association, which consists in the free flight of thoughts, assumptions and even fantasies. The topic touched upon in the essay must necessarily greatly excite its author, otherwise he will not be able to express his subjective opinion about it in full. Of course, in order to aesthetically form a philosophical thought, it is necessary to masterfully master the art of speech, here literature and philosophy are intertwined together. Thus, the author in his creation can use special, eloquent constructions, aphorisms, quotations, narrative elements, as well as lyrical digressions. The way in which the author constructs his text is also partly an expression of his personal position.
Another feature of the essay as a genre is the optional argumentation, in contrast to the scientific one, in which hypotheses must be supported by some arguments. Here they are not so necessary, although they are possible, since the author is not trying to prove or suggest anything to the reader, while pursuing only one goal - to express his own point of view on this issue. The essay also often contains some understatement and incompleteness, which indicates the continuation of the author's search for truth.
Intertextuality
Another striking feature that distinguishes the essay from other literary genres is intertextuality, that is, the connection with other genres and other texts. That is, the author, creating an essay, relies on the experience of reading and researching other texts and, perhaps, somewhere explicitly, but somewhere not, he quotes them. By the way, it can be not only literary works, but also any other artistic creations and cultural objects. All of them are reflected in the text of the author of the essay, and sometimes in his vision of the problem. In particular, the author can use such a stylistic tool as an allusion in the text.
Allusion is also a sign of the genre's intertextuality. It must be said that the essay is one of the literary genres that is a work of thought, and this distinguishes it from all other genres of literature.
