ABSTRACT
As into deep waters where we hope to recover lost treasure, we dive into the past for long-lost things. Sometimes in muddy waters we stretch out blindly for what is hidden from sight; sometimes, when the faint rays of the sun penetrate the clear ocean, we perceive the marking of waves on the grey sand. Such are the footprints of man's life which we pursue in the sea of time. Modern critical practice might balk, both at the ambition to recapture the essential identity and intentionality of the author, and at the sanguine hope (though deeply qualified) that a distant voice may be successfully reconstructed. One recurring difficulty in the analysis of fragmentation is the dependence of the fragment on a putative whole, and a putative norm of 'completeness'. Perhaps a 'fragment' can only rightly be considered such if there exists a whole or the projection of a whole from which it has become detached.
