Caution – deconstruction ahead
Blog Theory in progress:

“In English, unlike many other languages, the essay has played a minor role in twentieth-century literature. In contrast to the other writing forms, there is almost no criticism on the essay, no articulated recognition of the way an essay may be written, and other than comments on its content, no consensus or dissent on how it should be read. At the present moment, it is largely represented by certain of its subgenres – memoir, travel writing, personal journalism, book review, academic criticism – and the kind of free ranging essay that Borges wrote is almost entirely absent from periodicals outside of small literary journals.

Abroad, essays in an unlimited variety of styles appear daily in the cultural supplements of newspapers or in large-circulation intellectual magazines. They tend to be written by poets or novelists, and it is often the case that writers are known or respected as poets or novelists, but actually read as essayists. This is the milieu in which Borges wrote: much of the work here first appeared in newspapers. In that world, it was expected that essays be as fascinating as stories, and it is revealing that, perhaps in order for his fiction to be read, he started out by distinguishing his stories as essays.”

Eliot Weinberger – introduction to Jorge Luis Borges – Selected Non-Fictions.