The Essayist - I looked up the dictionary definition of this today, and it was very informative. An essayist is 'a person that writes essays'. Now I understand. Clear as mud.
Actually what I later discovered was, an essayist is someone who writes, in their opinion, about a multitude of topics. They can concentrate on the more profound and intellectual topics we humans experience, or just provide their opinions on the less extraordinary things found in our daily lives. They can write in prose or verse, but prose is the normal.
Because these essays are the writers own opinions or reflections, they are open to discussion or criticism by those with different outlooks on the subject. I think most modern day essayists can be found writing articles for magazines and periodicals. I generally don't read these types of prose, however, there are some that I believe I read everyday without actually realizing it.
For instance, bloggers commenting on current new articles, that write numerous paragraphs explaining their opinion on subjects can be considered essayists - although many of their essays are quite short in length. One useful essayist I find in my work as a novel writer, is the critic or reviewer. These kind folks analyse a writers work, and write an essay outlining their opinions of it's value. Other essayists write reviews of products we use in our normal daily lives.
When I first started investigating the essayist, I had assumed that they were simply opinionated writers trying to prove their arrogance by writing intellectual pieces on a variety of intellectual topics. How wrong I was. They are actually quite useful in today's society.
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