![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Adorno’s 1958 definition of the essay as a “heretical genre”, we might indeed be tempted to postulate that the essayist’s voice is bestowed on his/her readers at full strength when it engages in a process of systemic critique and current demystifying of dogmas pertaining either to a specific intellectual paradigm or to a historical period at large. Ever since its 17th-century origins, the essay has represented a site where it is possible to engage in vehement public oration – often simply unrequired or explicitly opposed – in the manner of the famous “soapbox orators” in Hyde Park (Sanders 1989). One of the features that anyone embarking on the description of the essay as a genre unquestionably has to face is the indeterminacy that is germane to its essence (Obaldia 1995), which is reflected in a desultory and fragmentary style, made up of anecdotes, illuminations, criticisms and suggestions for further reflection (Berardinelli 2008). ![]()
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