| Summary: | This essay argues that the essay is written under the sign of occasion. The allegorical figure
of Occasio, known in Greek as Kairos, figured the moment of opportunity which must be
seized for success in rhetoric, politics, and life; failure to grasp the occasion leads to
Metanoia, or regret. The first sections show how the early essayists Michel de Montaigne,
Francis Bacon, and Robert Boyle shaped the essay as an occasional genre. The final sections
turn to the contemporary writer and photographer Teju Cole, to show how photography
engages with the decisive moment of Occasio, and how Cole’s ‘lyric essay’ Blind Spot,
composed of texts and photographs, reinscribes the themes of occasion, seizure, and regret
which animated the early essay.
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