The Essayist's Notebook

On the opening page of essayism.org I wrote What if the essay were never merely a text? Suffered an avalanche of criticism and revised the sentence to What if the essay was never merely a text?

It's a question of mode, in English there are at least two of them, and in this case we are talking about the Indicative and the Subjunctive. Though I believe there are many editors who can't wait to attend the funeral of the latter. You can think of the first as concrete reality, here, now, in the past or in the future. The material world. The second is about “what if”, “sending wishes”, imagining, and daydreaming. The other mood.

Understanding this, that early correction on Essayism.org has never felt quite right to me. More, let me be honest; it's just been grating away at me. The difference is subtle. Was tends to suggest a question about fact or history: What if it turns out that the essay was never merely a text? By contrast, were is traditionally subjunctive. The words do not cast the thought in stone; rather, the mood invites the reader to entertain a possibility, a shift in perception, or a thought experiment:

What if music were a form of architecture? What if memory were spatial rather than temporal? What if the essay were never merely a text?

My intention was always the second. The question is not historical but exploratory. It asks the reader to suspend an assumption and consider another way of seeing.

Modern English increasingly favours was in such constructions, which is why many readers and editors instinctively replace were. Yet in this case the sentence functions as an invitation to inquiry rather than a statement about the past. So, after much correction, I find myself returning to my original thought:

What if the essay were never merely a text?

Sometimes grammar is not only about correctness. It is about choosing the mood that best expresses the thought. In this case, were keeps the door open. Was casts it somewhere in the past, as though the inquiry had already begun.

David Marshall Skerries