Rehearsal

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (here in a portrait of Daniel Dumonstier), a French philosopher and writer of the Renaissance, used the term Essais (Ensays) to name his writings, aware of his stylistic novelty. This work of his remains a classic model of gender.

The essay is a type of prose text that explores, analyzes, interprets, or evaluates a topic. It is considered a literary genre included within the didactic genre.

The most representative classic characteristics of the test are:

• It is a serious and substantiated writing that synthesizes a significant topic.
• Its purpose is to argue an opinion on the subject or explore it.
• It has a preliminary, introductory character, of a propedeutic character.
• It presents sustained arguments and opinions.

Almost all modern essays are written in prose. Although the essays are usually short, there are also very voluminous works such as John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

In countries like the United States or Canada, essays have become an important part of education. High school students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, or in the humanities and social sciences essays are often used as a way to assess student knowledge on final exams, or admission essays They are used by universities in the selection of their students.

On the other hand, the concept of "essay" it has spread to other spheres of expression outside of literature, for example: a "film essay" it is a film centered on the evolution of a theme or idea; or a photo essay is the way of covering a topic through a linked series of photographs.

The literary essay is characterized by its breadth in dealing with the themes. Most start from a literary work but the literary essay is not limited to its exclusive study. It is a subjective text where the experience of the essayist, study habits, literary work and opinions of a person who shows interest in literature are combined. Literary essays have common characteristics: subjectivity, simplicity and style of the essayist. On the other hand, the scientific essay deals with a topic from the field of formal, natural and social sciences with creativity, achieving a combination of scientific reasoning with the creative thinking of the essayist. From the artistic aspect, he takes beauty and expression through creativity without neglecting the rigor of the scientific method and the objectivity of science.

Concept

An essay is a relatively brief literary work, of subjective but well-informed reflection, in which the author deals with a generally humanistic topic in a personal way and without exhausting it, and where he shows a certain desire for style, in a more or less explicit, aimed at persuading the reader of his point of view on the subject matter. The author intends to create a literary and not simply informative work and it deals above all with humanistic subjects (literature, philosophy, art, social and political sciences...) but also, more rarely, with scientific subjects.

The essay, unlike the informative text, does not have a defined or systematized structure or compartmentalized in sections or lessons, for which reason it usually lacks a critical apparatus, bibliography or notes, or these are superficial or summary (in the case of the school essay, all sources must be provided); Since the Renaissance it was considered a more open genre than the medieval tractatus or treaty or sum, and it is considered different from them not only in its very free structure and nothing compartmentalized into sections, but also because of its artistic desire for style and its subjectivity, since it does not intend to inform, but to persuade or convince the author's point of view in the treatment of a subject that, as has already been said, does not intend to exhaust or systematically address, such as the treatise: de Hence its subjectivity, its protean and unsystematic character, its artistic sense and its flexible structure, which personalizes the matter.

The essay is an interpretation or explanation of a certain subject —humanistic, philosophical, political, social, cultural, sports, to mention a few examples—, developed in a free, unsystematic way, and with a desire for style without the need to use a documentary apparatus.

In the Contemporary Age this type of works has reached a central position.

Currently it is defined as a literary genre, due to the language, often poetic and careful, that the authors use, but in reality, the essay cannot always be classified as such. Sometimes it is reduced to a series of ramblings and musings, most of the time of a critical aspect, in which the author explores a specific topic or expresses his reflections on it, or even discusses and lectures without a specific topic.

Ortega y Gasset defined it as “science without explicit proof”. Alfonso Reyes affirmed that "the essay is literature in its ancillary function" —that is, as a slave or subaltern of something superior—, and he also defined it as "the Centaur of genres." The critic Eduardo Gómez de Baquero —better known as Andrenio— affirmed in 1917 that "the essay is on the border of two kingdoms: that of didactics and that of poetry, and makes excursions from one to the other." And for his part, Eugenio d'Ors defined it as the "poeticization of knowledge".

It uses the expository-argumentative discursive modality and a type of «soft reasoning» that have been studied by Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Ollbrechts-Tyteca in their Treatise on argumentation.

To this it should also be added that in the essay there exists, as the critic Juan Marichal has appreciated, a «will to style», a subjective impression that is also of a formal order.

Other didactic genres related to the essay are:

• The discourse (in the sense of "discurring" on a specific topic).
• Dissertation.
• The press article.
• The Renaissance and humanistic genres of the Dialogue, in their Platonic, Ciceronian and Lucianesca variants.
• Epistle.
• The miscellaneous.
• The literary chronicle
• Hybrid Genres

History of the essay

Europe

Cover Essays by Francis Bacon of the first edition of 1597 that would then go through and expand to the final version of 1625. Also Michel de Montaigne checked his Essais. In the second image, preserved in the Municipal Library of Bordeaux, on a copy of its fifth edition he wrote his own additions and handwritten modifications with which his last edition was published posthumously in 1595.

The critical and reformist spirit of the Renaissance gave birth to pre-essay genres such as letters or epistles, dialogues and miscellany, and exercises in irony such as In Praise of Madness by Erasmus of Rotterdam. But the modern and more configured and important development of the essay genre came above all with the model given by the canonical Essais (1580) of the French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne, a term that in French meant " groping, attempts". A few years later, Francis Bacon followed his example and published his Essays which in its first edition of 1597 contained 10 essays and in its third edition, the largest and printed in 1625, already contained 59.

The oldest precedents of the essay must be found in the epidictic or demonstrative genre of classical Greco-Roman oratory; the Letters to Lucilius (by Seneca) and the Moralia (by Plutarch) are practically collections of essays. In the III century d. C. Menander the Rhetor, alluding to it under the name of "talk", exposed some of his characteristics in his Discourses on the epidictic genre :

• Free theme (Ice, vituperio, exhortation).
• Simple, natural, friendly style.
• Subjectivity (the chat is personal and expresses moods).
• Elements are mixed (small, proverbs, anecdotes, personal memories).
• Without preset (devagation), it is aesthetic.
• Variable extension.
• It's aimed at a broad audience.
• Artistic consciousness.
• Thematic and construction freedom.

In Greece, where the essay has its origin as an epidictic discourse, it was considered as an original proposition that has elements of creation, generation and innovation. It started from normal (established) knowledge to break it. From elements that make it, to knowledge, different in: perspective, conjunction, relationship, conformation, etc.

It is in the 18th century when the genre is revitalized by Enlightenment criticism and bourgeois individualism. Steele and Addison vulgarize it in periodicals, particularly in The Spectator, and William Hazlitt and Samuel Johnson approach humanism and literary criticism. Voltaire writes his English Letters and Denis Diderot and Madame de Staël join the genre in French; In the Germanic sphere, Johann Jakob Bodmer and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (Laoconte) stand out, but also Johann Georg Hamann, who brings aphoristic fragmentaryism to the genre. Melchiorre Cesarotti and Pietro Napoli Signorelli can be cited among many other Italians. In Spain, Father Benito Jerónimo Feijoo stands out with his Critical Theatre and his Erudite and Curious Letters and José Cadalso with his Moroccan Letters; León de Arroyal and Francisco Cabarrús also write essay letters.

Already in the XIX century, it was generally cultivated in German; Heine, Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler among many others are especially peculiar and influential. In France, Chateaubriand, Alexis de Tocqueville, Léon Bloy, Joseph de Maistre, Ernest Renan are often quoted... In England, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, Thomas de Quincey, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alice C. Meynell, Gilbert K. Chesterton stand out., Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, Oscar Wilde... In Italy, perhaps the most distinguished and peculiar are the Zibaldone by Giacomo Leopardi and the essays by Giosuè Carducci. In Spain, the most cited are Juan Valera, Leopoldo Alas and Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo.

Japan

Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350). Japanese Buddhist Monk author of Tsurezuregusa, collection of 243 short essays, published posthumously. They deal with the beauty of nature, the transientness of life, traditions, friendship and others.

Essays existed in Japan several centuries before they developed in Europe in a genre called Zuihitsu that goes back to almost the beginning of Japanese literature. Many of the most notable early works of Japanese literature are in this genre. A notable example is the 11th century Makura no Sōshi (The Pillow Book) written by Sei Shonagon, a lady-in-waiting to the empress, in which she recorded her daily experiences at the Heian court. A second example is Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) written by the Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenkō. Kenkō described his brief writings in a similar way to Montaigne, referring to them as "nonsense thoughts", written in "idle hours". It is his most famous work and one of the most studied works of medieval Japanese literature.

Evolution of the trial in Spain

In Spain the genre arose with the Renaissance in the form of epistles, speeches, dialogues and miscellany in the XVI century. The first sample of the genre is the Family Epistles (1539) by Fray Antonio de Guevara, still in the form of a letter, who is also inspired by the Letras (1485) by Fernando of the Thumb; There are also numerous dialogues (almost always Erasmian, such as those of the brothers Alfonso and Juan de Valdés; the Dialogue on the dignity of man by Fernán Pérez de Oliva...) written not only in Spanish, but also in also in Latin, or miscellaneous such as that of Luis Zapata (1592) or the Garden of Curious Flowers (1573) by Antonio de Torquemada. In the 17th century it continued with the Pusilipo (1629) by Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa, the Cartas filológicas (1634) by Francisco Cascales and the Celebrated Errors of Antiquity (1653) by Juan de Zabaleta.

Then it appears solidly constituted at the beginning of the XVIII century with the much reprinted Universal Critical Theater (1726-1740) and the Erudite and Curious Letters (1742-1760) of Father Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, who calls them discourses (from "discurrir") or letters; At the end of it, under the vague and false appearance of an epistolary novel, appeared the Moroccan Letters (1789) by José Cadalso and the Economic-Political Letters (1785-1795) of Leon de Arroyal.

Only in the XIX century will it take its own name as an autonomous essay genre when they begin some authors of the Generation of 1868 wrote them: Emilia Pardo Bazán (The throbbing question, 1883 and 1884), Juan Valera (Dissertations and literary trials, La libertad in art...), Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, who already uses the term (Essays on philosophical criticism), Leopoldo Alas (Solos, 1881, and Palique, 1894)... The press begins to welcome them in some end-of-the-century magazines and you will find yourself fully established with the writings of the XX by the Generation of '98: Miguel de Unamuno (En torno el casticismo, 1895, and others), José Martínez Ruiz (Al margin of the classics, 1915), Pío Baroja (The cave of humorism, 1919; El tablado de Arlequí ín and New stage of Harlequin, 1903 and 1917; Picturesque Showcase, 1935; Momentum catastroficum, 1918), Ramiro de Maeztu (Towards another Spain, 1899; The crisis of humanism, 1919) and Antonio Machado (Juan de Mairena, 1936).

Noucentisme is especially noteworthy, which included essayists as gifted as José Ortega y Gasset (Meditations on Quixote, 1914; El Espectador 1916-1934, 8 vols.; Invertebrate Spain, 1921; The dehumanization of art, 1925 etc.), Ramón Pérez de Ayala (The masks, 1917-1919; Politics and bullfighting, 1918, etc.), Gregorio Marañón (Biological essay on Enrique IV of Castilla and his time, 1930; New time and old time, 1940; Don Juan. Essay on the origin of his legend, 1940; Liberal Essays, 1946), Eugenio d'Ors (Glosari, 1915-1917; Oceanografía del Tedi, 1918; Three hours at the Prado Museum. Aesthetic itinerary, 1922), Rafael Cansinos Assens (The divine failure , 1918; Ethics and aesthetics of the sexes, 1921; The new literature 1917-1927, 4 vols.; Literary themes and their interpretation , 1924 etc.), Ramón Gómez de la Serna (La utopia, 1909; The concept of new literature, 1909; The trail, 1915; Ismos, 1931), José Bergamín (The head of birds, 1934; The art of birlibirloque - The statue of Don Tancredo - El mundo por montera 1961, Illustration and defense of bullfighting, 1974, Beltenebros and other essays on Spanish literature Barcelona, 1973; The burning nail, 1974; The importance of the devil and other unimportant things, 1974; After all: (prose) 1981 etc.) or Manuel Azaña (Essays on Valera), among others.

The essay in Latin America

The essay in Latin America has great figures. Among the most influential precursors, it is worth mentioning the Argentine writer Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888) with his Facundo or Civilization and Barbarism (1845) and the Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó (1871-1917) for his Ariel (1900). The Mexican José Vasconcelos (1881-1959) writes on philosophy, aesthetics, and history, but is especially renowned for his essays on American themes, for example his La raza cósmica, where he postulates that an American mestizo race is the one who will lead the world in the future. The Dominican Pedro Henríquez Ureña (1884-1946) and the Argentine Ricardo Rojas (1882-1957) explore the identity of their respective countries and those written by the Peruvian José Carlos Mariategui (1895-1930) are focused from the point of view of the social Sciences. Also important are the Argentine Eduardo Mallea, the Mexican Leopoldo Zea and the Cuban José Antonio Portuondo, among many others.

Already in the middle of the XX century four figures stand out powerfully for their breadth of knowledge and bandwidth: the Mexican Alfonso Reyes (1889-1959) with Cuestiones estéticas, Visión del Anáhuac, Literary experience or El deslinde, among others plays; the aforementioned Pedro Henríquez Ureña (Critical Essays, History of Culture in Latin America, Plenitude of America); the highly original and influential Argentine Jorge Luis Borges (Inquisitions, Other Inquisitions, History of Eternity...) and the Mexican Octavio Paz, well with his essays on Mexican idiosyncrasy (The Labyrinth of Solitude), or with others on a more varied subject (Las peras del olmo, Cuadrivio).

Logic in essay

Logic is crucial in an essay and achieving it is somewhat easier than it seems: it mainly depends on the organization of the ideas and the presentation. In order to convince the reader, it is necessary to proceed in an organized way from the formal explanations to the concrete evidence, that is, from the facts to the conclusions. To achieve this the writer can use two types of reasoning: inductive logic or deductive logic.

According to inductive logic, the writer begins the essay by showing concrete examples to then induce general statements from them. To be successful, he must not only choose his examples well but also present a clear explanation at the end of the essay. The advantage of this method is that the reader actively participates in the reasoning process and therefore it is easier to convince him.

According to deductive logic, the writer begins the essay by showing general statements, which he progressively documents through very specific examples. To be successful, the writer must explain the thesis very clearly and then use transitions so that readers follow the logic/argumentation developed in the thesis. The advantage of this method is that if the reader accepts the general statement and the arguments are well constructed he will generally accept the conclusions.

Famous essays and some excerpts

Some of the most recognized essays, both in other languages and in Spanish, are the following:

• Tests by Michel de Montaigne.
• Them Thoughts of Pascal
• The spirit of laws de Montesquieu
• Eureka by Edgar Allan Poe
• A good cup of tea of George Orwell
• Art and revolution by Richard Wagner
• Monsters and Critics and Other Trials of J. R. R. Tolkien
• Other inquisitions by Jorge Luis Borges
• The writer and his ghosts of Ernesto Sabato
• Our America of José Martí
• The American Expression of José Lezama Lima
• The labyrinth of solitude of the Eighth Peace
• The temptation of the impossible by Mario Vargas Llosa
• The Marrue letters by José Cadalso
• La Spain invertebrate of José Ortega y Gasset
• Old time and new time by Gregorio Marañón

The following are excerpts from essays.

• Fragment of Gabriel García Márquez's essay, For a country within reach of children:

An education from the cradle to the tomb, unconformed and reflective, that inspires us a new way of thinking and encourages us to discover who we are in a society that loves itself more. Make the most of our inexhaustible creativity and conceive an ethics—and perhaps an aesthetic—for our disastrous and legitimate pursuit of personal overcoming.

• José Ortega and Gasset. Theory of Andalusia:

If we travel through Castile we find nothing other than the wind farms working their vegas, oblique on the south, preceded by the yunta, which on the horizon line acquires monstrous proportions. However, it is not the current Castilian a peasant culture: it is simply agriculture, what remains whenever true culture disappears. The culture of Castile was warlike. The warrior lives in the countryside, but does not live in the countryside - neither materially nor spiritually.

• Jorge Luis Borges. History of eternity:

Here of a certain varonil replica that refers to De Quincey (Writings, 11th volume, page 226). A gentleman, in a theological or literary discussion, threw a glass of wine in his face. The assaulted man did not switch and said to the offender: “This, sir, is a digression, I hope your argument.” (The protagonist of that replica, a doctor Henderson, died in Oxford around 1787, leaving us no memory other than those just words: enough and beautiful immortality.)

• Michel de Montaigne. Essays:

There is no man more displeased than I do to speak of memory, for it is so scarce that I have that I do not believe that there is in the world no one who lacks more than me this faculty. All the others are in me vile and common, but in memory I believe a singular and rare entity worthy of gaining reputation and naming. In addition to the natural lack that I experiment (in fact seen his need Plato does well to name her great and powerful goddess) if in my country they want to point to a man of no sense, they say of him that he has no memory; when I complain of the lack of mine they rebuke me and they do not want to believe me, as if I accuse me, of being unaware: they do not distinguish between memory and understanding, which aggravates my situation.

The essay in education: structure

The structure of the essay is extremely flexible, since any systematization is alien to its essential purpose, which is to delight by exposing a persuasive point of view that does not intend to exhaust, but to explore a topic, as it would (and systematically) the merely expository literary genre of the treatise; For this reason, these indications are merely indicative.

That is why its structure, at a macro stylistic or micro stylistic level, can be:

1. analyser and deductive (thesis or topic at the beginning and development of the arguments later);
2. synthesizing or inductive (exploration of data and arguments at the beginning and thesis or subject as a final conclusion);
3. framed (thesis at first, examination of the data and arguments in the center and reformulation of the thesis, corrected by these data and arguments, at the end).

This flexibility, which allows a person to write a text expressing what they know, feel and think about any subject, is widely used in education. At school it is common practice for students to write essays. In fact, the essay is the genre that is used most frequently, given the facilities it allows. Any time a teacher asks students to develop a topic, or to do research and put it in writing, it is likely to be written in essay form.

An example of the steps to be followed by a student who intends to write a school essay could be the following. First of all, and before writing it, you have to document yourself on the chosen topic until you reach sufficient knowledge, which means looking for the necessary information by consulting bibliographical sources or any other type. The second step would be to organize the ideas keeping in mind who is being written for, what is interesting to expose and how to do it better. And finally write it following an order, writing the ideas as best expressed as possible and checking that the information, style, point of view and format are coherent and conform to what is required.

A conventional school essay is usually structured in 3 parts: introduction, development and conclusion:

Introduction

It is the one that expresses the theme and objective of the essay; it explains the content and the subtopics or chapters it covers, as well as the criteria applied in the text, it is 10% of the essay and it covers more or less 6 lines.

In addition, this part can present the problem that it poses to the subject to which we are going to focus our knowledge, reflections, readings and experiences. If this is raised, then the objective of the essay will be to present our point of view on said problem (its possible explanation and its possible solutions).

An introduction in a scientific essay is usually the exposition of a hypothesis and the reasons that have led us to it. A hypothesis is a theory that is presented for the solution of a problem and that throughout the development of the essay will be defended with all the scientific evidence that we can provide.

When we talk about an argumentative essay, in the introduction the work is presented and the thesis is exposed. A thesis in an argumentative essay is similar to the scientist's hypothesis. It is an idea, an affirmation, that we are going to defend throughout the body or development of the essay. This thesis is defended with arguments that do not have to be scientific, they can be subjective opinions (In a scientific essay, subjective opinions must be scientifically validated)

In an expository essay, the introduction has the basic purpose of capturing the reader's interest in the argument of the essay. Although obviously this is sought in all the tests that are carried out in this case, it is the basis of this part of the presentation.

When we carry out a literary analysis essay, in the introduction we put the reader in the background about the work that we are going to treat and we situate the specific aspect of it that we want to analyze in our essay.

Development

It contains an exposition and analysis of the same subject, the own ideas are raised and are supported with information from the necessary sources: books, magazines, Internet, interviews among others. It constitutes 75% of the essay. It contains the entire theme developed, using the internal structure: 50% synthesis, 15% summary and 10% commentary.

The thesis is supported, already proven in the content, and it is deepened more about it, either offering answers about something or leaving final questions that motivate the reader to reflect.

Conclusion

In this section the writer expresses his own ideas on the subject, he is allowed to give some suggestions for solutions, close the ideas that were worked on in the development of the topic and propose lines of analysis for subsequent writings.

This last part maintains a certain parallelism with the introduction due to the direct reference to the essayist's thesis, with the difference that in the conclusion the thesis must be deepened, in light of the approaches exposed in the development.

Tips and recommendations for conducting an essay correctly

Before writing an essay, it is convenient to document yourself and be clear about the intention of it. The result is greatly improved by drawing up a list of ideas to be addressed and discarded, which are then numbered and classified according to the most convenient criteria (natural or artificial order; Nestorian (to better convince), chronological (adjusted to the explanation of a phenomenon), didactic (from the simplest to the most complex), in medias res, enigma or initial question, intensity... to outline an initial outline and a first sketch or draft.In this way, it can be better ordered and organized information and structure, with a view to greater understanding and persuasive effectiveness, offering a more mature, satisfactory and competent result that discards.

To carry out in an argumentative essay, the first of the three parts of the basic structure, the introduction, the author must present his opinion (thesis). In the case of an expository essay, he must make a clear delimitation of the topic. It is not recommended that the introduction exceeds one paragraph. At most two.

In the second part, the development, it is convenient to stick to aspects such as the following: analysis, contrast, definition, classification, cause and effect.

The last of the parts, the conclusion, should consist of a brief summary of everything exposed.

Preparing the content, documenting it, and writing it is just as important as its subsequent grammar, spelling, and organizational review.

The performance of carrying out essays will be progressively and significantly improved by reading many different ones, writing various genres, reading the online newspaper, etc.

How to progressively teach to develop arguments

Ancient rhetoric established 14 progymnasmata or written composition exercises graduated from least to most difficult to instruct and train future speakers in the development of argumentative texts:

1. Fable: a short fable is chosen and amplified (through paraphrasis, prosopopeya and sermocination or dialogue), or condensed (with ellipsis or any other procedure). It can also be any apologist or parable.
2. Narration: counting a fact or saying, pretending, real, mentioning who, what, when, where, how, why; just for what. Once you take care that the student has not missed anything, enlarge or summarize your text. It is the principle of the education of the speaker according to Quintiliano.
3. Chría or anecdote: brief and concrete account of a single fact or such work of a real character, exposed in the form of an uplifting or ingenious replica that the tradition attributes to such celebrity to a particular question, fact or situation; it is the shortest of the narratives and often tends to be a single paragraph, but differs from the maximum in which a particular historical character is attributed. It usually starts "Seeing..." or "Question...". In order to amplify it the author of the fact or said, he refers to it with brevity, he proves with reason, points out what is contrary to reason, adds a similarity or comparison, an example and a testimony or opinion of another, and ends with an epilogue or conclusion. It can be amplified by means of paraphrases or memorable chord phrases (refranes or sentences appropriate for the fact).
4. Proverb: to extend with concrete elements a condensed and abstract statement, a morale, a proverb, a saying, very similar to that of the chría, using paraphrase, comparisons, contrasts, examples, quotations from other authors or other phrases, including epilogue or conclusion.
5. Refutation: Attack on the credibility of a narration (the second exercise), for example a legend or myth. First it is briefly summed up and then six things are contemplated: its obscurity, improbability, impossibility, counter-reality, indecorosity and inutility. These arguments are preceded by an exorbitant who vitupera al autor de la narración y un epilogo que lo rerende. Contradiction and adynaton are used.
6. Confirmation. It is argued to demonstrate and strengthen the credibility of a narrative (made or said) with evidence. An exordium praises the author of such an epilogue as an example. For this, six things are considered: the manifest, the probable, the possible, the decorous, the useful... To this end, the rhetorical figures of logos are used.
7. Common or topical place: amplification of obvious goods or vices. It relates to encomium and vituperio. It consists of an exordium in which the punishment or reward deserved by the evil or virtuous man is said, the opposite of the crime or virtue persecuted, the explanation of crime or merit by amplification, the comparison with other crimes or virtues, the intention of the evil or virtuous man is manifested and a digression is made over the previous life. It separates compassion and ends with an epilogue composed for the purposes of the legitimate, the conformity, the equity, the useful, the feasible, the glorious or honorable and the event.
8. Commendation: exhibition that serves only excellence. For this he looks at the lineage, country, instruction, body mind and fortune of a person, he is favorably compared and he ends up exhorting others to emulate him. It is typical of the epiditic genre.
9. Vituperio: exhibition that caters only to vices. It is done the same as in the encomium, but on the contrary; it is also characteristic of the epiditic discourse.
10. Comparison: it is the sum of two decays or a decay and a vituperium to make one prevail over the other, or more rarely of two vituperes.
11. Etopeya: imitation of the character of a person, as in the modern dramatic monologue. The character can be historical, legendary or literary and entirely fictional. If you imitate any deceased, you are called idolopeya. Ethhos figures are used.
12. Description: is the composition that exposes your subject in the eyes of a particular auditorium. An order is always followed for this; if it is an abstract idea, the background order is followed, together and consequential.
13. Thesis or theme, that Cicero called cause and other rhetoric dispute: logical examination of a subject under investigation, but without specific reference, without abandoning the abstract plane. For example, if you should choose a woman, but not if Socrates should choose a woman. It differs from the common place where in this one amplifies a certain thing, and in the thesis the doubtful: it is about convincing, not seeking the truth. Its parts are exorbitant (which appreciates the subject), argumentation (of the articles that touch the subject and the places of the exhibition), opposition (of the things contrary to those that belong to the end), solutions (by concession, by negation or otherwise) and epilogue (which contains a brief amplification, a brief repetition of the arguments and a brief exhortation). It can also be abbreviated with an exordium, an exhibition or narrative and a final peroration. Consideration should be given to arguments based on legality, justice, experience, background, decency and consequences.
14. Defense/attack: like the above, but directed towards or against laws, because it enters the deliberative genre.

Types of essays

The essay has undergone several attempts at classification, but generally, they are established from two different points of view:

• those that are predominantly set in the content: historical, critical-literary, philosophical, sociological, among others.
• and those who take into account the way the essayist deals with his theme: informative, critical, ironic, confessional, etc.

In the end, all these classifications vary with the times and are useful from a pedagogical point of view, but they are all insufficient when faced with the complexity of an essayist's work.