This article aims to contribute to the theoretical systematization of constituent aspects of the essay, in order to consider them in the practice of translation of this genre: argumentative superstructure, essayist narrator, ethical responsibility, generic hybridity, cultural references, and figures of speech and thought. To this end, we introduce a critical conceptualization of the essay and we review the theoretical-critical field of literary translation, both of traditional genres and of the essay, on which there are considerably less studies. We conclude that the identification and translation of these features result in the preservation of the stylistic and argumentative intentions of the essayist narrator, via which the translation constitutes an instance of ethical responsibility, both towards the author of the source text and the reader of the target text.