Abstract
Starting from the undeniable inadequacy of (poetic) language, which, as Kleist pointed out, can only provide ‘torn fragments’ without allowing fully accomplished communication, this article examines how such fragmentariness creates distinct units of meaning as part of the author’s intentionality. Kleist programmatically called his drama Penthesilea, which was published in his journal Phöbus in 1808, an ‘organic fragment’. This paradoxical term highlights an inherent contradiction: namely the unity between the fragmentary and the organic, the latter presupposing, after all, an existing whole. Whilst the author termed his drama in this case a fragment, which pretends to be organic, the opposite occurs with his comedy Der zerbrochne Krug. Here, Kleist generates a complete whole from linguistic fragmentations or, to put it provocatively, a fragmentary organism. This intricate relationship is the subject of the following philological and thematic analysis.