Abstract
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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