Eseul reflexiv (the reflective essay) – este un eseu mai complex decât cele discutate până acum. El testează abilitatea de gândire, descriere, ordonare a ideilor şi de a insera exemple extrase din propria experienţă de viaţă, imaginaţie, studii etc.
Există două tipuri de eseuri reflexive:
- eseuri descriptiv-reflexive (descriptive-reflective essays) – implică deopotrivă un proces complex de descriere şi reflexie; de obicei, acestea au un titlu format dintr-un singur cuvânt (de exemplu Restauranting, Gardening etc.) şi presupun nu numai descrierea subiectului respectiv, ci şi exprimarea propriilor opinii şi sentimente, sau experienţelor care au legătură cu acesta.
- eseuri abstracte – accentul cade mai curând pe raţionamente decât pe descrieri; şi aceste eseuri pot avea un titlu format dintr-un singur cuvânt, dar acesta desemnează o realitate abstractă (de exemplu Beauty, Truth etc.). Uneori însă, titlul unui astfel de eseu poate apărea sub forma unei sintagme care începe, invariabil, cu cuvântul On (de exemplu On our necessity to work, On lack of courage etc.). În tratarea unui subiect de acest gen descrierea nu este atât de importantă ca raţionamentele, sentimentele şi părerile personale.
După stabilirea titlului, cel mai important lucru este stabilirea tipului de eseu pe care-l vom avea (descriptiv-reflexiv sau abstract).
De exemplu, “frontiers”; într-o abordare de tip descriptiv-reflexiv putem include detalii ca:
- frontiers between countries
- geographic descriptions (land, water, air)
- frontiers seen as a separating space between two or more communities
- they can be movable, or fixed
- frontiers in history
- frontiers seen as a defense etc.
Într-o abordare de tip abstract, subiectul trebuie tratat metaforic:
- frontiers seen as a person’s intimacy
- psychical limit
- boundaries
- means of isolation
- prevention from communication (language, behaviour, culture etc.)
- why do we have inter-human frontiers?
- do we build such frontiers voluntarily or not? etc.
Odată ce modul de abordare a subiectului a fost stabilit, este foarte important să ne rezumăm doar la unul dintre ele şi să nu le „amestecăm”! De exemplu, dacă am ales eseul descriptiv-reflexiv, ne limităm doar la descrierile din punct de vedere geografic ale frontierei şi ne exprimăm părerile sau sentimentele în legătură cu acestea. Nu amintim de factorul psihic sau de latura metaforică a subiectului.
În compunerea unui astfel de eseu se îmbină mai multe abilităţi:
- analiza (analysis)
- sinteza (synthesis)
- descrierea (description)
- exemplificarea (illustration; giving examples)
- contrastarea (contrast)
- umorul (humour) – unde este posibil!
Pe lângă acestea, trebuie să avem grijă ca stilul ales să fie constant pe tot parcursul lucrării. De exemplu, nu putem folosi un ton serios, pentru ca apoi să-l schimbăm brusc cu unul comic, decât dacă există un motiv real pentru acest lucru. De asemenea, eseurile nu trebuie să fie prea personale (redactate la persoana I singular), decât dacă se specifică acest lucru în indicaţii. Cel mai bine este ca lucrările să folosească un ton impersonal pentru a putea exprima generalul.
Ex.
Title: Tourists
Type: Descriptive-reflexive
Main idea: Tourism today is a minutely organized affair. The average tourist actually sees very little of the country s/ he visits.
Brainstorming:
- leaflets, brochures, guide books
- tourists plan their holiday a long tome before it actually takes place
- winter time
- local colour
- souvenirs
- sun glasses
- beach
- cruise liners
- ruins, spas
- post –cards
- typical scenes and traditionalism
- rush
- hotels
- travel agencies
- programmes
- tourists see little and have no time to understand and analyse
- holiday is over; back to work; another year full of work ahead of us
Introduction:
- means of transportation for the tourists
- guide books, maps and travel agencies make everything easier
Body:
- the tourist is planning his holiday ling time before it takes place, even in the long winter months (making decisions, calculating and balancing all the offers)
- nice thoughts about the holiday to come
- holiday time approaching and the host countriea getting ready to receive tourists (spas, ruins, castles, typical scenes, traditional food and entertainment, souvenirs etc.)
- sight-seeing; tourists see little and have no tyme to analyse and value things; they only have time to take pictures and send post-cards to their family and friends; snapshots
Conclusion:
- the holiday is over, the tourist returns home
- s /he is refreshed and ready to start work again
Tourists
By car, by train, by ship and by plane, thousands and thousands of tourists depart from home like migrating birds every year. They provide the best possible evidence to prove that the world is not big enough. Armed with all sorts of guide books, leflets and maps which tell them where to go and how to get there, what to see and eat, where to stay and what to do, tourists wander the globe in search of the unseen, the unique, the unbelievable. There are travel agencies everywhere to cater for the tourist’s needs and make all the necessary preparations for him. They make out ambitious programmes and promise to show him as many as seven countries in a fortnight or, if he is in a hurry, they will cover the same ground in fewer days.
In the safety of his own home, away from the cold winter time outdoors, the tourist begins planning the summer holiday he longs for. Spread out before him on the floor is a splendid array of brightly/coloured leaflets, brochures and guide books all of them equally tempting. Here is a magic island, there a magnific cruise liner, the leaflet on the table reveals a superb blonde blinking an eye while sipping an exotic cocktail and enjoying the sun…Now is the time for big decisions to be made, for a fortnight’s holiday is not to be squandered lightly. Would he like to go on a cruise and swim in the ocean? Would he like to ski and sip a hot chocolate in Aspen? Would he like to visit a remote corner of the world and hunt? And above all, would he like to do something he will always remember? It is all there for the asking. Shivering before the fire in the fireplace and armed with his best paper and pencil, the tourist makes all sorts of calculations and balances everything in his mind. It takes him an eternity to decide in which particular promising land he should invest his heard-earned money.
Once the decision made, the tourist is free from worry. He now has something definite to dream at and discuss about over a cup of coffee, at the gym, when bowling or playing cards. In the tourist’s mind there is now a little heaven of peace and quiet taking shape minute by minute. This idea comforts him during the bitter winter months.
Winter passes and the time draws near. The simple tourist is often innocent of the fact that most countries in the world have become tourist-conscious. For months now, each country has been advertising its beaches and cities, its spas and ruins, its beauty, modernity and tradition in a frantic effort to be chosen. They do their best to meet the tourist’s needs and be up to his expectations. So, it ges without say that they provide”typical” scenes: costumes, food, music, ways of entertainment etc. Representatives of the tourist organization give the visitor a hearty welcome the moment he sets foot on their “teritory” and vendors of souvenirs find themselves in a permanent competition.
It is no wonder that the tourist is an extremely busy man. He barely arrives at the hotel that he is immediately taken on a conducted tour of the city by day or by night (according to the moment he arrives). In the morning, he goes through another ardous course of sight-seeing. He has barely had the possibility to recover, or find out exactly where the hotel is located, before he is off again to another part of the country. It is not a tour what he gets. It is a snap-shot view. No time to analyse or even understand what everything is about. He only has at most half an hour to take some pictures which he can sort when getting home and proudly show them to his friends. The only inconvenient would be that he can no longer remember where each of them was taken and what they represent. In his perpetual race against time, the tourist is always sending post-cards to his relatives depicting wonderful views of places stored randomly in his mind, like more and more pieces of puzzle.
No other fortnight in the whole year passed so quickly. Travel-worn, the tourist eventually arrives home proudly displaying his collection of passport-stamps. Truly rested, he is back at the office the next day with a year’s work ahead of him. But winter comes again and he will begin another chase of best paradises to see during his next summer holiday.
Title: Tradition
Type: abstract
Main idea: Tradition is like a living body, in a permanent change.
Brainstorming:
- perceived as a rigid thing
- association with the old
- struggle to accept the new
- re-examination and re-evaluation of the past
- tradition is misunderstood
- war
- what does tradition mean?
- Darwin; social revolution
- slow assimilation
- tradition is like a city
- we get it from our ancestors and pass it on to our successors
Introduction:
- the word ‘tradition’ is misunderstood; it is not a fixed rigid thing
Body:
- there is a struggle to accept the new
- we cannot decide if everything which is dazzling new will ever become tradition: fashion, arts, politics etc.
- exception: atomic energy, for instance; there have been dramatic changes (slow process, but sure)
- the manner in which new ideas are accepted: half way by one generation and completely by the next one
- Darwin’s example
Conclusion:
- tradition is like a city, always changing.
- it is something we inherit from our ancestors and pass to our successors, but we do not keep it unaltered.
Tradition
Due to the fact that the word itself is widely used, it is frequently misunderstood. It is regarded as a fixed entity, rigidly hostile to change, something to be defended against those who do not treasure it. Nothing could be more mistaken. Tradition is not only made up of our important beliefs, but also the great host of trivial daily habits and customs we acquire in the course of growing up. Nor is it inflexible. New ideas are continually being adapted to fit in with the old. This process is slow but sure. And when old ideas become obsolete, they fall into oblivion.
There is a permanent struggle concerning the acceptance of the new. People do not wish to give up notions they hold dear. Thus, tradition protects itself, for by providing a testing-ground of the new, it allows only what is of some value to assert itself.
In this way, tradition acts like a protector against the easy acceptance of new ideas which seem to be attractive on the surface. Not everything which is dazzling new is worth to be labelled as long-lasting item, but it is impossible for us to decide whether it is valuable or not. What seems to be extremely new and trendy in arts, politics or science may no longer be valid in a few years’time. The desire for novelty which is so important in fashion, architecture or design sometimes affects our most important beliefs and institutions. We are often urged by the media to “re-examine” and “re-assess” long-established views which have taken centuries to form and replace them by opinions which have been conceived in a few hours or days. One may wonder how many such “re-assessments” will be remembered in few years’ time.
It is equally true that sometimes a discovery may completely alter our outlook. Ideas which have been kept intact for centuries can occasionally be swept away over night. For instance, present advances in nuclear physics have totally changed our “traditional”conception of warfare. The very word “war” has now taken on a new meaning which was unknown as recently as 1944. Nevertheless, dramatic changes of this sort are unusual. The big social revolution we have witnessed in the twentieth century still has a long way to go before reaching anything like perfection.
Ideas which are half-accepted by one generation are often completely accepted by the one that follows. Novelty is harshly attacked by those who cannot conceive of a new order and are judged by standards of the past. This is due to the fact that people’s sensibilities are confined to what they have always known and believed. What was totally new to one generation is easily assimilated by the following one because sensibility has widened enough to allow a notion that was once considered radical to establish itself. A good example is Darwin’s Origin of Species: the controversy that it initially provocked has lingered down to this day. If at the beginning Darwin’s arguments were hotly disputed, now they are part of our cultural heritage. This means that they no longer shock our sensibilities. In the same way, modern music does not strike us as discordant because it does not conform to former conceptions of harmony. What were once new ideas have withstood the test tradition has imposed on them.
Our view of the past is always changing. Tradition is like a great city which is growing and developing continuously. Old buildings disappear and new ones take their places. Regardless of its form, shape or size, each new building alters our vision on the already existing ones. The city we have in front of our eyes is not the one our ancestors saw and used to know. Nor is it the one we shall pass to our successors.
I am very happy!
RăspundețiȘtergereby Ungureanu Bianca