"Those who understand something of a sailor's feeling for his ship will appreciate the restraint with which Captain Bone describes the loss of the Cameronia, his command, torpedoed in the Mediterranean during the War. You will notice (forgive us for pointing out these things) how quietly the quoted title pays tribute to the gallantry of the...More
Essay, an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view.
The genre became the favoured tool of traditionalists of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Edmund Burke and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who looked to the short, provocative essay as the most potent means of educating the masses. Some essays attempted to reinterpret and redefine culture, established the genre as the most fitting to express the genteel tradition at odds with the democracy of the new world.
Whereas in several countries the essay became the chosen vehicle of literary and social criticism, in...More
Essay, an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view.
The genre became the favoured tool of traditionalists of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Edmund Burke and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who looked to the short, provocative essay as the most potent means of educating the masses. Some essays attempted to reinterpret and redefine culture, established the genre as the most fitting to express the genteel tradition at odds with the democracy of the new world.
Whereas in several countries the essay became the chosen vehicle of literary and social criticism, in other countries the genre became semipolitical, earnestly nationalistic, and often polemical, playful, or bitter. Essayists such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Willa Cather wrote with grace on several lighter subjects, and many writers—including Virginia Woolf, Edmund Wilson, and Charles du Bos—mastered the essay as a form of literary criticism.
Book Summary
"Those who understand something of a sailor's feeling for his ship will appreciate the restraint with which Captain Bone describes the loss of the Cameronia, his command, torpedoed in the Mediterranean during the War. You will notice (forgive us for pointing out these things) how quietly the quoted title pays tribute to the gallantry of the destroyers that stood by the sinking ship; and the heroism of the chief officer's death is not less moving because told in two sentences. This superb picture of a sea tragedy is taken from Merchantmen-at-Arms, a history of the British Merchants' Service during the War; a book of enthralling power and truth, illustrated by the author's brother, Muirhead Bone, one of the greatest of living etchers.
David William Bone was born in Partick (near Glasgow) in 1873; his father was a well-known Glasgow journalist; his great-grandfather was a boyhood companion of Robert Burns. Bone went to sea as an apprentice in the City of Florence, an old-time square-rigger, at the age of fifteen; he has been at sea ever since. He is now master of S.S. Columbia of the Anchor Line, a well-known ship in New York Harbor, as she has carried passengers between the Clyde and the Hudson for more than twenty years. Captain Bone's fine sea tale, The Brass-bounder, published in 1910, has become a classic of the square-sail era; his Broken Stowage (1915) is a collection of shorter sea sketches. In the long roll of great writers who have reflected the simplicity and severity of sea life, Captain Bone will take a permanent and honorable place."
- Christopher Morley
English Essay
