The Fragment: Towards a History and Poetics of a Performative Genre (review)

In this complex analysis of the genre of the fragment, Camelia Elias shows us that while there is no such thing as a fragment in the singular, there are always already a plurality of fragments at work in the history (and divides) of literature, philosophy, and theology. Although we can never, not quite, be sure of what a fragment is—whether a piece of language is in fact to be classified as a fragment—we must nonetheless “assign the fragment a status of which one can never be sure” (2). I like this uncertainty. It fragmentizes things from the beginning, but also lays the groundwork for the labor of making connections of fragments across time and significances. Mythoplokos, Anne Carson calls it, citing Sappho from the Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta. Weaving fictions. Elias weaves her textual fragments across the page of history.