Essays historically originated---with Montaigne's Essais---as discursive, digressive, long-form prose. They are a prose artform that attempts to achieve more th

Essays historically originated---with Montaigne's Essais---as discursive, digressive, long-form prose. They are a prose artform that attempts to achieve more than a straightforward information dump. You might not like the form, and there are certainly many bad examples, but a long essay is no more a failure to write a short blog article than a poem is a failure to write a news report.