The function of fragmentation in an artistic text: two stories by Maurice Blachot

The article considers creative work of the French philosopher, writer and literary critic Maurice Blachot (1907-2003) that evolves from the novel form into the fragmentary text which includes elements of prose, criticism and essays. A hypothesis is put forward and proven that fragmentary text was being formed during all the period of Blachot’s work as a non-unity consisting of fragmentum complementing each other that have never comprised a whole. The subject of this study is not a fragment as a phenomenon, but functions of fragmentation that is employed already in Blanchot’s first stories and forestalls fragmentary texts.