<!doctype html public «-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en»> http-equiv=content-type> The essay became popular in Europe during the 18th century. From early “edifying weeklies” and to the journals published around 1800, the essay served an emergent bourgeois audience as a means of critical reflection. For the first time, this study applies textual analysis to show that essay writers during the Enlightenment conceived of the essay as a technology of the self. It traces the forms of subjectivity developed through essayistic writing.
