moved to NYC in 1921 -- age 23 --- and then found a writing job for the New Yorker - an anonymous weekly column. Stayed for 50 years
New Yorker writer for 50 years
influential stylist
"Once More to the Lake" is typically read in first-year literature classes. 2800 words
A good example of a general, personal experience essay
that is, taking a personal experience and turning it into a compelling essay
Published only a few months after Pearl Harbor
won Pulitzer Prize in 1978 in a special category for his "full body of work"
Stuart Little,
Charlotte's Web,
Elements of Style, Essays of E.B. White.
Goodbye to Forty-eighth Street - best written
Here is New York
Once More to the Lake
White's writing style
White fuses
Ideas- observations of a naturalist, writing about every day life
Form - precision of a craftsman; great command over his voice
Voice - the aesthetic of a daydreamer
Patterns used:
Experience
Lake is a microcosm of the world for White
Sequence - structure starts with an introduction, examples, conclusion
Cohesive details; deja vu
Subtext - remember the last line of the essay
very masterful about using sound and sight; almost poetry
each paragraph has a job
E.B.White's wife was Nabokov's editor at the New Yorker, so they would have crossed paths often. We'll read a Nabokov essay at our class on November 5
What to look for in "Once More to the Lake"
Timing: this event occurred in 1904, and White wrote about it in 1941 after visiting the lake in 1936--one year after his father died. Thus the mortality angle
Consider: the stillness of the lake compares to the stillness of sound, stillness of time
White's signature style
don't give away your thesis in the beginning
get a hook that prods your reader's mind
but don't go halfway through the essay with the reader wondering what this is about