engleski

The personal essay - on the pleasure of walking

The paper deals with the relationship between personal essay as a form and walking as an impulse for artistic drive. The theoretical frame of the paper is concerned with the place of the personal essay within the literary genre (Adorno, Epstein, Lukacs, Lopate). The idea of walking for its own sake can be compared with the personal essay: a walk can be a means of processing thoughts, evoking associations and discovering new ideas which arise spontaneously along the way. The essayist can in the same way deal with the subject, the mind can wander in various directions, expressing reality of its own experience. In its mental freedom essay is similar to walking – there is no wrong way in reaching the destination. What impact has the act of walking on the essayist? The different viewpoints and perceptions of walking are analysed in four personal essays by Richard Steele (Twenty-four hours in London), Max Beerbohm (Going out for a walk), William Hazlitt (On going a journey) and Virginia Woolf (Street haunting).

personal essay, genre, walking, subjectivity, freedom, stream of consciousness.

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