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Journal of Language and Literary Studies |
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To Walk Is/Not to Write: The Perception of Walking in Two Personal Essays by Max Beerbohm and Virginia Woolf
Nina Sirković, University of Split, FESB, nina.sirkovic@fesb.hr
Original scientific paper
DOI: 10.31902/fll.48.2024.2
UDC: 821.111.09Vulf V.
UDC 821.111.09Birbom M.
Abstract: The paper deals with the relationship between the personal essay as a form and walking as an impulse for artistic creation. After the place of the personal essay within the literary genre is considered (Adorno, Peter, Huxley, Epstein, Boetcher Joeres, Mittman, Lopate), the idea of walking for its own sake is compared with writing the personal essay. A walk can be a means of processing thoughts, evoking memories, developing associations and ideas which arise spontaneously along the way. Going for a walk implies no specific direction, so the essayist has a mental freedom to express personal experience wandering in various directions, since there is no drawn path in advance. The different perceptions and viewpoints of walking are analysed in two personal essays “Going Out for a Walk” by Max Beerbohm and Virginia Woolf’s “Street Haunting”.
Key words: personal essay, walking, subjectivity, freedom, flâneury, stream of consciousness
1. Introduction
The important characteristic of the personal essay is its intimacy. The essayist sets up a relationship with the reader, sharing his thoughts, ideas, impressions, fears, complaints in a conversational, familiar style. The reader gets the impression as if the author is whispering in his ear, entrusting everything to him, from ordinary gossip to the greatest wisdom. By sharing his intimate thoughts with the reader, the essayist establishes a specific interaction, a dialogue, even friendship to some extent, based on understanding and identification. At the heart of the personal essay lies the assumption of the unity of human experience, which was first noticed in Montaigne.
Phillip Lopate mentions the conversational element as one of the most important characteristics of this type of essay, because the very dynamics of the conversation and the desire to make contact are woven into the form of the essay and serve to establish emotional intimacy with the audience. A common feature of the personal essay is interest in the little things, insignificant things that are at hand, irrelevant and seemingly uninteresting, but inspiring for the essayist. Very often the personal essayist turns a small subject into a big topic (xxiv-xxv).
In the preface to his Collected Essays from 1958 Huxley gave his definition of the essay, mentioning that "the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything"(i). He also claims that essays belong to a literary genre whose exceptional variability can be studied in relation to three aspects, which Huxley calls poles. The first aspect is personal and autobiographical, the second is objective, that is, factual and concrete-particular, and the third aspect is abstract-universal. Huxley believes that the best essayists and essays are those combining all three mentioned worlds in which thoughts and feelings can move freely and effortlessly between all three spheres, from the personal to the universal, and back to the concrete, that is, from objective facts to inner experience and vice versa. Through this circular motion a continuous dynamics of the essay is created.
Walter Pater compares Plato and Montaigne, referring to their literary methods. He considers the Platonic Dialogue “essentially an essay” (162), because the topic is argued by asking questions and giving answers as the method of discovery. It resembles Montaigne’s essayistic method, which combines flexible form with intellectual rigor. Pater claimed that Montaigne had found the ideal literary form which corresponded to the way that human mind related itself to truth, where truth is just a possibility, a personal experience rather than general conclusion. This “essentially informal, this un-methodical method” (179) presents rather a dialectic process than seeking for conclusions. Plato used questions and answers in the same way Montaigne used endless conversations with himself: not to find eternal truth, but to get closer to certain knowledge.
In his reflections on the essay as a literary genre, Adorno stresses that the essay “does not try to seek the eternal in the transient and distil it out; it tries to render the transient eternal” (11). Hence the essayist's complete freedom towards his subject, his "anti-systemic impulse" (15) and immediacy. However, due to such freedom of the essay, it is difficult to define this literary genre. The essay is constantly renewed and changed from one author to another, opposing any clear definition and form, containing elements of philosophy, history, biography, popular science, critical, journalistic or moral work. It includes a variety of views, it is not limited to one individual, it constantly exceeds limits and thus acquires interdisciplinarity. The essay turns the content of all spheres of human consciousness upside down and brings them closer to human experience. It is in fact a "trial" (from French essayer - “to try”) in which certain knowledge and experiences are reflected in order to get closer to the reader. This task is all the easier because the essayist is neither an expert who has achieved certain knowledge, nor a philosopher, historian, psychologist or politician, but a person who tries everything and who has certain knowledge about everything. Mikhail Epstein claims that the essayist is actually a "professional of the amateur genre" (64).
The essay as a literary form has always been difficult to define, so it is sometimes classified as an "anti-genre", a place for critical thinking and subversive, unscientific discussions. By analogy, such a genre would also include letters and diaries, i.e. all those forms of writing that are often called private texts, and which were traditionally written by women. Boetcher Joeres and Mittman offer a new perspective of the essay and point to the importance of considering the concept of gender within the essay as a special genre, the very form of the essay that offers different ways of expression, and the importance of politics in the understanding and development of the essay (13).
The two critics write that the essays may have been intended to give moral lessons to women, but in that case women were only objects addressed to or written about, so they did not actively participate. Women, who were little heard of in the time of Montaigne and Bacon, were not expected to write essays, as the genre involved experience, wisdom and reflection, which were not considered characteristics of women of the era. Boetcher Joeres and Mittman suggest that it was only in the nineteenth century that women began to write more essays, because the social situation had changed to such an extent that they were enabled to convey their thoughts and attitudes more freely. Even in the 20th century, a woman had to have a reason for walking alone through the city, as in the essay “Street Haunting” by Virginia Woolf. They point out that, when we want to investigate what today's women undertake when they choose an essay for their own purposes, how they adapt the form of the essay to themselves and their expression, we often reach for the names of women who are activists and in a way encourage radical attitudes and thoughts. In order to adapt a form that is not intended for women to themselves, a dose of radical thinking is needed (14).
Often the writer of a personal essay begins to research one subject, then very quickly establishes the opposite topic, in order to incorporate both topics into one whole by the end of the essay. The title of the essay sometimes has nothing to do with its content. This frequently occurs in Montaigne’s essays, when he announces large topics, like experience, and starts writing about whatever occurs to him. Digression is another technique in the personal essay that has both structural as well as a humorous function. The main role of digression is to accumulate all the dimensions of understanding that the essayist manages to collect by bringing a problem or idea into as wide context as possible, without overloading it. Digression can justify its existence only if it actually supplements the subject. The essayist starts from his thoughts and shows the reader how he came to them. The subjective approach is emphasized, so the essayist is sometimes in disagreement with himself. An important feature of a personal essay is the ability to create doubt, as it has a stimulating effect on the reader. The personal essay indicates how our “I” functions relatively freely in today’s uncertain world. Sceptical, but honest and tolerant of imperfections, this way of existence corresponds to modern course of life. Yet Montaigne’s claim that human beings were surrounded by darkness and there was nothing solid around them that they could firmly hold to, pointed to a philosophical acceptance of the idea that man should live in the moment (Lopate 1997 xxv).
The act of walking for its own sake can be compared with the personal essay: a walk can be a means of processing thoughts, evoking associations and discovering new ideas which arise spontaneously along the way. In its mental freedom the essay is similar to walking – there is no wrong way in reaching the destination. The personal essayist deals with his subject in the same way, the mind can wander in various directions, expressing reality of its own experience. Because of the flexibility and adaptability of the form of the essay, the personal essayist has freedom to move in all directions, using free associations and digressions, what seems to be just impulsive, unsystematic writing as fragmentation and digression, is actually a result of well thought literary technique and a system within itself. Because of their unpredictability, walking as well as writing can become an unending source of surprise and pleasure.
2. Reality, Experience and Expression in Max Beerbohm’s essay “Going Out for a Walk”
Numerous writers wrote essays on walking, many of them are widely studied, like Richard Steele’s vivid description of a life of a city in one day in “Twenty-four Hours in London,”, or Hazlitt’s essay “On Going a Journey” and Thoreau’s “Walking”, which belong to very best of their writings. This paper focusses on essays on walking by two contemporaries, Max Beerbohm, who was merely known as an essayist, and Virginia Woolf, a famous novel writer and a prolific essayist, whose essay writing was unfairly neglected for quite a long period of time. The two writers had completely different opinions on walking as an act of inspiration, or even relaxation and source of tranquillity. In “The Modern Essay“ Woolf praises Beerbohm’s essays and calls him “the prince of his profession“ (302). Woolf distinguishes that “he has brought personality into literature, not unconsciously and impurely, but so consciously and purely that we do not know whether there is any relation between Max the essayist and Mr. Beerbohm the man” (301). She compares reading of his essay with friendship, the reader gets the impression that he is surrounded by friendly faces and pleasant atmosphere and words have sense of human presence:
But A Cloud of Pinafores has in it that indescribable inequality, stir, and final expressiveness which belong to life and to life alone. You have not finished with it because you have read it, any more than friendship is ended because it is time to part. Life wells up and alters and adds. Even things in a book-case change if they are alive; we find ourselves wanting to meet them again; we find them altered. So we look back upon essay after essay by Mr. Beerbohm, knowing that, come September or May, we shall sit down with them and talk. (307)
An effective technique in essay writing is an intriguing opening in order to evoke interest in readers to continue the reading process. Charles Lamb begins his famous essay “A Chapter on Ears” with the sentence: ”I HAVE NO EAR. – “ and leaves the reader in suspense until he explains: “ […] – for music” (165-166). William Hazlitt opens his essay “On Going a Journey” with an idea that solitude in nature offers the best company: “ONE OF THE PLEASANTEST THINGS in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone” (181).
Max Beerbohm uses the same technique in his essay “Going Out for a Walk” from 1918. He challenges the idea of walking for walking’s sake, finding nothing enthusiastic about walking: it neither inspires emotions and thoughts nor arouses spirit of freedom and curiosity. While many other writers praise walking, Beerbohm states in the very first sentence: “IT IS A FACT that not once in all my life have I gone out for a walk. I have been taken out for walks; but that is another matter” (237). The subversive idea of walking as a completely irrelevant and unnecessary activity is supported by many explanations further in the essay, starting with the fact that the author lives in London, a town which is rather unpleasant for walking because of its noise, bustle, squalor and smoky air. These are the reasons why nobody invites him for a walk in London. On the other side, when in the country, people tend to ask him to go for a walk with them, thinking that “there is something inherently noble and virtuous in the desire to go for a walk” (237).
Beerbohm rejects the idea of going for a walk as a productive activity - on the contrary, he states that it stops the brain from thinking because of various distractions along the way. The ideas that come to us in the room when we are alone, get lost outdoor. The reason may be a person who wants to go for a walk with you, whom Beerbohm ironically calls a “walkmonger” (237). During the walk, people usually lead trivial and shallow conversations, tend to repeat the same idea constantly, or read aloud inscriptions that occur along the way, from notice-boards for traffic recommendations to trespassing bans. That means that during the walk their brain does not work properly, it is distracted by the surrounding and nothing meaningful can result from walking activities.
After stating and elaborating the problem, Beerbohm offers an explanation: a person is urged by his soul. The reason why walking cannot produce any sensible thinking activity is because the brain and soul clash. Beerbohm explains their relationship in the form of an imaginary dialogue, where the soul orders the brain to march:
Yes, it must be the soul that raps out the “Quick march!” to the body. - “Halt! Stand at ease!” interposes the brain, and “To what destination,” it suavely asks the soul, “and on what errand, are you sending the body?” - “On no errand whatsoever,” the soul makes answer, “and to no destination at all. It is just like you to be always on the look-out for some subtle ulterior motive. The body is going out because the mere fact of its doing so is a sure indication of nobility, probity, and rugged grandeur of character.” - “Very well, Vagula, have your own wayula! But I,” says the brain, “flatly refuse to be mixed up in this tomfoolery. I shall go to sleep till it is over.” The brain then wraps itself up in its own convolutions, and falls into a dreamless slumber from which nothing can rouse it till the body has been safely deposited indoors again. (238-239)
That is the reason why the conversations during the walk often slip into dull topics and gossip. The author continues, even if you go to a definite place, your brain would rather you took a vehicle, but it will serve you well unless you go out for a walk. If your legs move, the brain will not do any deep thinking for you.
Max Beerbohm was known for his curmudgeonly character, something he also often deliberately emphasized. The grumpy note is present in this essay, but Beerbohm presents himself more as an easy-going person who would like to be left alone in his armchair rather than a person who is angry and bitter towards walkers. At the end, he refers to the possible light-hearted topic of his essay: “Such as it is, this essay was composed in the course of a walk, this morning” (239).
The author concludes the essay with the statement that physical exercise is good for you if it is taken moderately, but strongly advices against taking a walk without reason. He mocks with the writing style of elder essayists who tended to begin and end their arguments with the same sentence, so, as he begun with the sentence that not once in all his life he had gone out for a walk, he also ends the essay with the same idea: “I never will go out for a walk” (239).
3. Virginia Woolf ‘s “Street Haunting”: Mind, Meaning and Imagination
The completely different point of view concerning urban walking for its own sake and London as a place for going for a walk shared Virginia Woolf in her essay “Street Haunting” (1930), with the subtitle “A London Adventure”. The essay was written two years after publishing Mrs Dalloway, the novel in which the act of walking through the centre of London, Regent’s Park, Westminster, Trafalgar Square and other places serves as a link between characters. Woolf wrote many essays with different topics, shorter and longer, but besides perhaps “A Death of the Moth”, this essay can be regarded as one of her most poetic personal essays. The very subtitle of the essay already implies an idea of a new experience, something thrilling, surprising, unexplored. Woolf felt strong connection between walking and writing, especially through London: ”London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play and a story and a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets” (Woolf 1982 186; Bowlby 219).[1] She finds winter walking through the streets of London as a way to escape and explore: dwelling the streets in the twilight between tea and dinner gives a sense of freedom, a person can join the army of anonymous people there and absorb life in the street almost invisible. Rebecca Solnit shared the same idea in her book Wanderlust: A History of Walking: “Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world” (267).[2] Rachel Bowlby calls the moving outside “the removal of individuality for anonymity and the shift from stability – one fixed place – to mobility, a peaceable ´army´ on the move” (220).
Woolf begins her essay with a humorous and intriguing statement:
No one perhaps has ever felt passionately towards a lead pencil. But there are circumstances in which it can become supremely desirable to possess one; moments when we are set upon having an object, an excuse for walking half across London between tea and dinner. (2014: 256)
It is obvious that the pencil purchase is just a guise for strolling alone through the streets and the narrator takes up a role of a flâneuse who will take the reader into adventure with her vivid feminine spirit of idle rambling down the streets. The term flâneur was for years reserved for a man, presumably an aristocrat who has time enough to wander aimlessly through the streets of a city searching for a new experience and was often referred to different types of artists, painters, writers, composers. The figure of a flâneur influenced the development of new themes and motives in art because through discovering sociological structures of a city, a new and creative perception of a city could be built. The flâneur is in search for the undiscovered, the hidden and gives things and characters a new meaning. He catches impulses that the city emits, disguised as an individual in the crowd. Guided only by the intuition, the flâneur does not move along a fixed route, but wanders aimlessly and absorbs the environment with all senses. While men were spending their free and leisure time with walking, the relationship between women and the city was different. It was restricted to aimless shopping because it was not appropriate for a woman to stroll alone through the streets, so she had to have a task to fulfil and an excuse for going out of the house.[3] So of all the things which she could choose as a reason for going for a walk on her own, Virginia Woolf chose to buy a pencil, a symbol of writing, which is in this sense a symbol of a woman writer.
Walking gives Woolf the opportunity to fully develop her experimental literary techniques. The essay is free of expected linear narratives, the reader does not expect finished or closed text, but becomes the narrator’s companion in the walk, gradually shut in the curtain which the author has drawn around us, as she points out as a characteristic of a good essay in “The Modern Essay” (307). She uses the stream of consciousness technique to move from the external reality into the internal world of her characters, and into their minds, projecting narratives full of impressions, visuals and the unconscious. The shell-like covering in which our soul is closed at home among all the familiar objects which limit rather than expand our horizons breaks as soon as we leave the house and step out into something new, unknown and adventurous.
The author builds the narrative framework of the essay around a walk around London in search for a pencil. Walking through Holborn and Soho, Oxford street, Mayfair and the Strand gives the narrator the opportunity to catch with her eye everything happening in the streets. The walk offers opportunity to move from place to place, enter and leave the shops, meet different people, leap into another character’s consciousness, imagining what they think, feel and remember. During the walk through the streets of London, the narrator can imagine herself in any situation or environment she chooses. The freedom of movement inspires mental wanderings as well. In that process, the eye is an important means of perception. She mentions “a central oyster of perceptiveness, an enormous eye” (257) and further explains: “The eye is not a miner, not a diver, not a seeker after buried treasure. It floats us smoothly down a stream; resting, pausing, the brain sleeps perhaps as it looks” (257). Guided by the eye for a certain time, the narrator is tempted to go deeper than the eye can see or approves. She firstly urges to stay on the surface only. Soon she claims that the eye has the strange property to rest only on beauty, but after some time we become aware of satiety. We want to know more about the people we see. Eventually we start to ask ourselves, how it is to be a dwarf, blind man, Prime minister, homeless person, a wife of a second-hand book shop owner, some of the characters she meets or imagines during her walk. Woolf plays here with the reader, at certain moments the narrator is a disinterested and detached observer who catches some scenes only with the glimpse of her eye. Such are the encounters with an old beggar or the woman lying in the street covered with a cloak (whose covering she compares with one on a dead horse or a donkey), the social component seems not to be relevant for her. On the other hand, the episode with a dwarf will offer completely different perspective, the reader will be drawn into the mind of that little person.
The descriptions of streets, people and the busy atmosphere in the streets of London is vivid and lively, so the reader easily feels as a part of it and identifies with the narrator’s story. On her way the narrator stops at shop windows, even enters few shops. The scene of a female dwarf buying shoes in the boot shop is a remarkable example of drawing the reader into the story:
We halt at the door of the boot shop and make some little excuse, which has nothing to do with the real reason, for folding up the bright paraphernalia of the streets and withdrawing to some duskier chamber of the being where we may ask, as we raise our left foot obediently upon the stand: "What, then, is it like to be a dwarf?” (260)
The mind will find the hidden beauty inside deformity and imperfection. The dwarf, who is different in appearance in the street from the others, has her moment in the shop, showing her perfect, aristocratic feet and being admired for a while:
She came in escorted by two women who, being of normal size, looked like benevolent giants beside her. Smiling at the shop girls, they seemed to be disclaiming any lot in her deformity and assuring her of their protection. She wore the peevish yet apologetic expression usual on the faces of the deformed. She needed their kindness, yet she resented it. But when the shop girl had been summoned and the giantesses, smiling indulgently, had asked for shoes for “this lady” and the girl had pushed the little stand in front of her, the dwarf stuck her foot out with an impetuosity which seemed to claim all our attention. Look at that! Look at that! she seemed to demand of us all, as she thrust her foot out, for behold it was the shapely, perfectly proportioned foot of a well–grown woman. It was arched; it was aristocratic. Her whole manner changed as she looked at it resting on the stand. She looked soothed and satisfied. Her manner became full of self–confidence. She sent for shoe after shoe; she tried on pair after pair. (261)
When buying was over and the dwarf returned to the street, “the ecstasy faded, knowledge returned, the old peevishness, the old apology came back, and by the time she had reached the street again she had become a dwarf only“ (262). The episode shows that there are always more perspectives in approaching and assuming things; beneath the surface there are always some other layers of perspectives, surprising and unexpected. Nothing is as it looks like at first sight, besides the deformity lays a great beauty, hidden and completely individual, not obvious to everyone. This proves that beauty is often based on prejudices and negative perceptions. Back in the street, compared to other passers-by, that beauty disappears and the imperfections return to sight. Inside the shop, the little lady with her beautiful feet was a shining star, confident and proud, showing off her perfectness. As soon as she leaves the shop, among others in the street she is invisible again.
The essay completes by coming full circle, the narrator buys the pencil and returns home through the same streets which are now empty. At home, she is safe and protected, feels comfortable around old possessions and the lead pencil is ”the only spoil we have retrieved from all treasures of the city” (267). The home offers past and present identity, safety within one’s four walls, after experiencing fluidity of individuality that offers an outdoor experience.
The walk offered the narrator an escape from the room of her own, the possibility of going into the minds of others, a brief and liberating experience of becoming other for a while. In Woolf’s essay there is no feeling of alienation caused by solitude, although the narrator wanders through streets of London alone. It is about pure flânerie, the idle desire to wander and observe, which is inextricably connected with solitude. It is a way of experiencing freedom, moving to other people’s minds and the journey itself is of most importance, not the purchase of a pencil. Walking represents an escape and a pleasure. Woolf claims: “[…] the escape is the greatest of pleasures; street haunting in winter is the greatest of adventures.” (267)
“Street Haunting” is a complex essay and can be analysed from various perspectives. It deals with observing, escapism, individuality and urban anonymity, identity. Woolf challenges different standpoints, such as the position of a woman from the feminist perspectives, issues of inner and outer space, or raises the question of the metaphor of the dwarf: whether it is the author herself, or it is the essay as a form in comparison to other, “bigger” genres, such as the novel, or it could apply for any idea being unjustly perceived by hindered, biased and superficial perspectives.
4. Conclusion
Walking has different connotations among writers, most of them perceive it as a leisure activity which brings pleasure and offers an inspiration for artistic creation. It is stimulating and inspirational. The things they see, feel, smell or experience during the walk can be a trigger for deeper mental activities. In some situations, long walks have inspired authors to write essays on the sheer pleasures of walking, whereas some other writers decline any joy that walking might bring. Sometimes walking helps as a means to convey the atmosphere of vivid and busy street life, or tranquillity that nature brings, or the walk is just a guise for more complex issues for which it is the reader’s task to resolve. The analysis of two personal essays on walking by Max Beerbohm and Virginia Woolf point to two completely different approaches to the issue.
For Beerbohm walking is an irrelevant and insignificant activity, and nothing good or useful can result from it. Perhaps there is a benefit of a physical activity, which he also despises and emphasizes that one should not overdo it either. The city, especially London, is inadequate for walking because of the noise, bustle, crowd and cars and it creates a hectic and nervous atmosphere. Numerous shops, inscriptions and signs distract the attention of walkers and interfere with concentration, and in such conditions any useful or serious conversation is completely impossible. For Beerbohm walking is simply a waste of time.
Virginia Woolf, on the contrary, experiences walking as a liberating activity, the streets of London offer desirable solitude, one is alone in the street, and at the same time also surrounded by other people, unknown, interesting and inspiring. A walk through the city evokes one’s curiosity, you can get into people's houses by looking at their illuminated windows, and indirectly into their lives and thoughts. Walking stimulates imagination, creativity and satisfies the human need for socialization. One is in the center of events, and yet also on the sidelines. Also, a walk through the city serves Woolf for her narrative technique because, although the essay functions as a closed circle (the walker leaves the house at the beginning and returns home again at the end), the fragments that the walker experiences on the streets of London and which distract her allow the author to indirectly enter into other people's minds. The trigger is in the street, the ideas swarm either by observing places such as houses and apartments, or people she meets on the street or in shops. A whole constellation of characters appears in the essay: a blind man, homeless person, dwarf, Prime minister, different people from different social classes, and each of them lives a life, unique and interesting. Using the narrative technique of stream of consciousness, the narrator seamlessly moves from the street, which presents external reality, to internal thoughts, the inner life of characters. For Woolf, street haunting was a way for to experience freedom. We should not ignore the fact that in those days men had freedom to go where they wanted without hindrance, and women needed a reason to go out in public (in this case it is a pen). The sociological moment is also relevant for different approaches to the issue of walking: while for one the walk is a bore, for another it means liberation.
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Elkin, Lauren. Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.
Mihail Epštejn, „Na raskršću slike i pojma “(Esejizam u kulturi novoga doba). R.E.Č. Časopis za književnost, kulturu i društvena pitanja, trans. Radmila Mečanin, no. 18. February 1996. Print.
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------- Selected essays. Ed. David Bradshaw, New York: Oxford University, 2008. Print.
-------“The Modern Essay”. The Common Reader. Web.
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-------The Diary of Virginia Woolf. Volume 3, 1925-30. Ed. Anne Olivier Bell. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Print. entry for 31.5.1928
šetati ne/znači pisati: PERCEPCIJA šetnje u dva osobna eseja Maxa Beerbohma i virginije woolf
Rad se bavi odnosom osobnog eseja kao književnog oblika i šetnje kao poticaja za umjetničko stvaralaštvo. Nakon razmatranja mjesta osobnog eseja unutar književnog žanra (Adorno, Peter, Huxley, Epstein, Boetcher Joeres, Mittman, Lopate), ideja šetanja, odnosno hodanja bez posebne svrhe i cilja uspoređuje se s pisanjem osobnog eseja. Šetnja može biti sredstvo procesuiranja misli, evociranja sjećanja, razvijanja asocijacija i ideja koje se spontano javljaju na putu. Odlazak u šetnju ne podrazumijeva određeni pravac, pa esejist ima mentalnu slobodu izraziti osobno iskustvo lutajući u raznim smjerovima, budući da nema unaprijed zacrtanoga puta. Različite percepcije i shvaćanja čina šetanja analiziraju se u dva osobna eseja „Going for a Walk" Maxa Beerbohma i „Street Haunting" Virginije Woolf.
Ključne riječi: osobni esej, šetnja, subjektivnost, sloboda, flanerizam, struja svijesti.
[1] As Rachel Bowlby cites, Woolf writes about enjoying walking through London in her diary, entry for 31.5.1928.
[2] Solnit explored the idea of walking for many other purposes, not just aesthetic, but also cultural, social and political and challenged the multifunctional impact on the society.
[3] More about the development and a position of a flâneuse can be find in Lauren Elkin, Women walk the city in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London. The author traces the relationship between a woman and the urban city atmosphere which she experiences by walking, resulting in new creativity and art. The author traced the steps of some famous women artists through various cities, from Jean Rhys, George Sand, Agnes Varda in Paris, Virginia Woolf in London and Sophie Calle in Venice. Elkin, Lauren. Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.