Although the word “fragment” already appears in French literature in the early sixteenth century, and wide use of fragmentary writing in Montaigne’s texts is obvious, literary historians and theorists study the fragment mostly basing on the works of Romanticism and postmodernism. Meanwhile, already in the eighteenth century, first of all in Rococo literature, we can find examples of the formation of the fragment genre and various forms of fragmentation in novelistic prose. The analysis of such texts allows deeper and more accurate understanding of the genesis and evolution and evolution of fragmentary writing.
fragment; writing; Rococo; novel; genre; evolution.