This article examines the literary fragment in the context of twentieth-century literary theories of reading and suggest a new understanding of it as a literary device rather than a historical phenomenon belonging to a given genre or period. Focusing on the concept of the fragment as it appears in various twentieth century literary theories, I show that the fragment is in fact a common device, a technique used in multiple ways across diverse literary genres. I argue that it is reflective not only of the process of its creation but also of its reception. Furthermore, although scholarship of the fragment has tended to be considered mainly within the framework of Romantic, modernism, post-modernism, and trauma studies, this article will show that when examined, instead, in accordance with modern and postmodern reading theories, the literary fragment emerges as a central phenomenon that recurs in reading and interpreting all types of texts.