JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground

JavaScript

;(function(window, document, undefined){
  
  function parseHTML(htmlString){    
      var frag = document.createDocumentFragment();
      
      if(!!DOMParser){
        
        var parser = new DOMParser();
        return frag.appendChild(parser.parseFromString(htmlString, "text/html").querySelector("body").children[0]);    
        
      } else {
        
        var el = document.createElement( "div" );
            el.setAttribute("id", "wrapper");
            el.innerHTML = htmlString;
        
        frag.appendChild(el);
        return frag.querySelector("div#wrapper").children[0];
      
      }
      
  }
  
  this.parseHTML = parseHTML;  
  
})(window, document);

  //String representation of nodes you want
  var htmlString = "<div><ul><li></li></ul></div>";

  //nodes from parsing htmlString
  var nodes = parseHTML(htmlString);

  console.log(nodes);