FRAGMENT, CZYLI POGRANICZE FILOZOFII I LITERATURY W PISARSTWIE EMILA CIORANA
Abstract
FRAGMENT OR THE BORDERLANDS OF PHILOSOPHY AND
LITERATURE IN EMIL CIORAN’S WRITINGS
This article concerns fragmentary writing of Emil Cioran. The author
tries to show that the fragment is a specific type of artistic creativity
that is situated between literature and philosophy. The initial part of the
article deals with the problem of modern fragmentarism that was born
in the times of German romanticism. Then, the author investigates the
causes of Cioran’s fragmentary writing, which are: the opposition to
systematic philosophy, the opposition to modern idea of a literary
„work” and the intellectual honesty which shows heterogeneity of life.
All this makes the fragment very difficult to interpret: we wish to adopt
the whole sense of it, but we cannot do this. Also, the title issue turns
out to be unsolvable. Cioran escapes fixed categories. And fragment, as
an unsuccessful, fractured discourse, can be both literature and
philosophy, or none of them. That makes it similar to Jacques Derrida’s
ideas of farmakon, aporia or différance.