Literary notes about fragment (AI summary)
In literature the term “fragment” is employed to denote parts of a text or idea that remain incomplete or separated from a larger whole. Authors use it to designate remnants of ancient manuscripts or lost writings—such as remnants from Venetian texts ([1]), the fragmentary works mentioned by Bede and Bacon ([2], [3]), or even the sole surviving portions of an autobiography ([4]) and a classical narrative ([5]). Beyond literal textual remnants, “fragment” also appears as a descriptor for pieces of conversation or objects, as in the casual remark about a hotel bill ([6]) or a detached piece of rock tumbling down a mountain ([7]). In other contexts, it metaphorically captures a sense of incompleteness, whether in a person considered “a fragment” of what they might have been ([8]) or an idea that barely hints at a broader, more complex concept ([9]).
- A fragment of a Venetian version in that library (No. 56 in our list of MSS.)
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano - The fragment translated here by Bede has been accepted as genuine by most critics.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Saint the Venerable Bede - 610 This fragment was found among Lord Bacon’s papers, and published by Dr. Rawley in his Resuscitatio.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon - The Autobiography is Franklin's longest work, and yet it is only a fragment.
— from Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin - Only four books and a fragment of a fifth have been preserved to us.
— from The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus by Cornelius Tacitus - “And over here is what appears to be the fragment of a hotel bill, which interests me deeply.”
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - Sometimes a fragment of rock came bounding and thundering down, ploughing its way through the centre of their host.
— from The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole - Was he impotent, or a cripple, or a defective, or a fragment?
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence - But representative government, the one universal relic, is a very poor fragment of the full republican idea.
— from What's Wrong with the World by G. K. Chesterton
