An e-mail message from a textbook publisher invites me to "transcend the essay!" by considering three new composition textbooks. Frankly, I'm not sure I know what it means to "transcend the essay!" and even if I had clear, detailed diagrams, I'm not sure I'd be ready to take that step. I love the essay form. I even like the word "essay," despite the dark cloud of connotations it can carry in the minds of many students. To essay is to attempt, to try, to give it a shot; it's a step into the unknown, a tentative bridge across the abyss, and if it fails--well, it's not rocket science or heart surgery. No one ever died of reading or writing a bad essay (although I've read a few that have driven me pretty close to the edge).
The essay I would be tempted to transcend is the mediocre essay, if by "transcend" we mean move beyond, rise above, escape the limitations of. Very bad essays can redeem themselves by providing some humor, and good essays help me transcend the limitations of the human condition and experience exaltation to the world of ideas, but what can you do with a mediocre essay? It just sits there like radioactive waste with a long half-life, polluting everything it touches, or it sucks up ideas the way a black hole sucks up matter, inexorably drawing even light into its gravitational pull. Show me a way to transcend the mediocre essay and I might buy your textbook. Ask me to transcend the essay form entirely and I'll delete your message, exclamation points and all. It may not be easy to "Transcend the essay!", but I can transcend the e-mail with a click of a button.
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