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"That is the purpose of all writing"
--Lucile Vaughan Payne
Perhaps this line struck me as the most quotable because it is perhaps the most flagrant example of exactly what Payne seemed to be attempting to convey in this essay. That is, of course, the notion that a piece of writing is not ever to be considered an essay unless it expresses an opinion. It is interesting because, this is of course, true, and yet it is a such a common misconception, even among those which one would expect to know the difference. For example, you could definitely find many essays in the annual Best American Essays series which contradict this definitition of an essay. Yet it is not an opinion of Payne's that this is the purpose of an essay. This is a fact, which can be isolated right down to the etymology of the word "essay," which of course comes from the french word "essai" which means an attempt. So for a piece which conveys the implied intention of all writing as though it were dogmatic and incontravertible fact, Payne's piece is aptly named.
Posted by Natan Hamilton on 2/4/04; 2:35:41 PM
from the dept.
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