The Essayistic Spirit: Literature, Modern Criticism, and the Essay

Despite the recognition of a "great tradition" of essayists who have been admitted to the literary canon, the genre remains underrated and somewhat neglected in literary studies. This wide-ranging book argues that to relegate the essay in such a way is to ignore the fact that our "modern" conception of literature is fundamentally essayistic. De Obaldia explores both the creative potential of the essay and the limits of essayism on the borders of philosophy, literature, and criticism by referring our post-romantic conception of literature and literary history back to Montaigne's Essais, and to a whole related tradition of philosophical skepticism. She draws on a range of writings including those of Montaigne, early German Romantics, Lukacs, Adorno, Derrida, Hartman, Barthes, Proust, Broch, Musil, Bakhtin, and Borges.