[The literary] fragment, like a small work of art, has to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world and be complete in itself like a hedgehog.
Friedrich Schlegel, Athenaeumsfragment, c. 1800 (via stanford)
[The folly, as] Such a law-abiding fragment of the past, or even its imitation, was a prickly phenomenon in the eyes of the young Romantics of Germany. Friedrich Schlegel characterized the fragment - isolated and self-contained like a small work of art - as a hedgehog. The inturned nature of an aphorism, of an unfinished poem, was seen to be analogous to the piece of history, complete in itself, never to be returned to its original wholeness, but always indicating its potential completion. Uncurled and slowly moving, the hedgehog might be going forward or backward, but was always historical; curled up, it was an impenetrable and hermetic harbinger of the truth.