O estudo de obras clássicas literárias japonesas do gênero zuihitsu é um desafio para pesquisadores no Brasil, pois, além das dificuldades trazidas pelas diferenças entre as línguas, incorre em novas conceituações de modalidade de escritos. Apesar de ser considerado em geral como equivalente ao ensaio ocidental, é possível observar divergências que indicam uma necessidade de adequar o olhar crítico ao gênero oriental. Para isso, foram abordadas questões concernentes às definições de gênero literário no ocidente através de um apanhado histórico da crítica, levando em conta a etimologia do termo; e algumas considerações a respeito do caráter linguístico dos conceitos conforme a teoria de Wittgenstein. Em seguida, pretendeu-se esquematizar as abordagens do ensaio enquanto gênero, remontando sua história, através de passagens dos Ensaios de Montaigne, de alguns textos de Bacon, Hume e Adorno, entre outros ensaístas e críticos que versam sobre o assunto, de maneira a delinear características próprias dessa categoria ocidental. Além disso, examinamos, a partir de suas formulações e de sua recepção, a possibilidade de se encontrar uma tradição também no Brasil. Posteriormente, buscamos mapear as origens do zuihitsu em paralelo com as do ensaio. E, então, analisamos alguns textos de Makura no Sôshi em comparação a outros de Tsurezuregusa , duas das três obras consideradas basilares e essenciais à compreensão do gênero japonês. Essa análise comparativa foi feita tendo por base principalmente a presença de certos temas em comum, como a motivação da escrita, certas considerações sobre as quatro estações, sobre os momentos de ócio ou, ainda, sobre os monges. Nosso intuito foi trazer à tona semelhanças e diferenças entre as obras de modo a elucidar características do gênero que o aproximam ou o distanciam dos ensaios e de outros gêneros ocidentais, na esperança de que isso nos levasse à adequação do olhar supramencionada. E, por fim, foi realizado um fechamento a partir de considerações a respeito dos gêneros ocidentais e do ensaio, do zuihitsu e do cotejo das obras clássicas japonesas, que nos leve à conceituação desse gênero japonês. / The study of classic Japanese literatures genre zuihitsu is a challenge for scholars in Brazil, because besides the difficulties about languages differences, it incurs in a new conceptualizations of written genres. Although some scholars consider it as equivalent to Western essays, it is possible to observe some disparitys that indicate a need to adjust our critical view to the Eastern genre. In order to achieve that goal, we had approached some questions about Western genres definitions through a historical and literary overviews, as well as we had taken into consideration the terms etymology, and referred some ponderations about the linguistic character following some of the Wittgenstein theory concepts. After that, we intended to outline a scheme of essays as a literary genre, retracing its history, through passages of Montaigne\'s Essays, of some texts from Bacon, Hume and Adorno, among others essayists and critics that deal with the subject, in order to delineate its characteristics. More than that, we have examined, from its formulations and its reception, the possibility of finding also such a tradition in Brazil. Subsequently, we have seek mapping zuihitsu origins in confrontation to the essays ones. In addition, thereafters, we have analysed some texts from Makura no sôshi and compared them to others from Tsurezuregusa, two of the three masterpieces which are considered basic and essential to understanding the Japanese genre. This comparative analysis was done by means of their common themes, such as the written motivations, some considerations of four seasons, moments in idleness or even monks. Our aim was to bring out similarities and differences between them to elucidate genre characteristics that bring them nearer or make them apart of essays, hoping that this would lead us doing some adjustments of our critical view. Finally we have finalized this dissertation by referring some considerations on the Western genre, the essays, the zuihitsu, and the comparison of Japanese classical pieces, which lead us to conceptualyze the Japanese genre.

O estudo de obras clássicas literárias japonesas do gênero zuihitsu é um desafio para pesquisadores no Brasil, pois, além das dificuldades trazidas pelas diferenças entre as línguas, incorre em novas conceituações de modalidade de escritos. Apesar de ser considerado em geral como equivalente ao ensaio ocidental, é possível observar divergências que indicam uma necessidade de adequar o olhar crítico ao gênero oriental. Para isso, foram abordadas questões concernentes às definições de gênero literário no ocidente através de um apanhado histórico da crítica, levando em conta a etimologia do termo; e algumas considerações a respeito do caráter linguístico dos conceitos conforme a teoria de Wittgenstein. Em seguida, pretendeu-se esquematizar as abordagens do ensaio enquanto gênero, remontando sua história, através de passagens dos Ensaios de Montaigne, de alguns textos de Bacon, Hume e Adorno, entre outros ensaístas e críticos que versam sobre o assunto, de maneira a delinear características próprias dessa categoria ocidental. Além disso, examinamos, a partir de suas formulações e de sua recepção, a possibilidade de se encontrar uma tradição também no Brasil. Posteriormente, buscamos mapear as origens do zuihitsu em paralelo com as do ensaio. E, então, analisamos alguns textos de Makura no Sôshi em comparação a outros de Tsurezuregusa , duas das três obras consideradas basilares e essenciais à compreensão do gênero japonês. Essa análise comparativa foi feita tendo por base principalmente a presença de certos temas em comum, como a motivação da escrita, certas considerações sobre as quatro estações, sobre os momentos de ócio ou, ainda, sobre os monges. Nosso intuito foi trazer à tona semelhanças e diferenças entre as obras de modo a elucidar características do gênero que o aproximam ou o distanciam dos ensaios e de outros gêneros ocidentais, na esperança de que isso nos levasse à adequação do olhar supramencionada. E, por fim, foi realizado um fechamento a partir de considerações a respeito dos gêneros ocidentais e do ensaio, do zuihitsu e do cotejo das obras clássicas japonesas, que nos leve à conceituação desse gênero japonês. / The study of classic Japanese literatures genre zuihitsu is a challenge for scholars in Brazil, because besides the difficulties about languages differences, it incurs in a new conceptualizations of written genres. Although some scholars consider it as equivalent to Western essays, it is possible to observe some disparitys that indicate a need to adjust our critical view to the Eastern genre. In order to achieve that goal, we had approached some questions about Western genres definitions through a historical and literary overviews, as well as we had taken into consideration the terms etymology, and referred some ponderations about the linguistic character following some of the Wittgenstein theory concepts. After that, we intended to outline a scheme of essays as a literary genre, retracing its history, through passages of Montaigne\'s Essays, of some texts from Bacon, Hume and Adorno, among others essayists and critics that deal with the subject, in order to delineate its characteristics. More than that, we have examined, from its formulations and its reception, the possibility of finding also such a tradition in Brazil. Subsequently, we have seek mapping zuihitsu origins in confrontation to the essays ones. In addition, thereafters, we have analysed some texts from Makura no sôshi and compared them to others from Tsurezuregusa, two of the three masterpieces which are considered basic and essential to understanding the Japanese genre. This comparative analysis was done by means of their common themes, such as the written motivations, some considerations of four seasons, moments in idleness or even monks. Our aim was to bring out similarities and differences between them to elucidate genre characteristics that bring them nearer or make them apart of essays, hoping that this would lead us doing some adjustments of our critical view. Finally we have finalized this dissertation by referring some considerations on the Western genre, the essays, the zuihitsu, and the comparison of Japanese classical pieces, which lead us to conceptualyze the Japanese genre.

L’écriture fragmentaire est le lieu d’un flou théorique. Elle est tout d’abord le fruit d’une appréhension intuitive, pragmatique : est fragmentaire tout texte perçu comme tel. D’Héraclite aux surréalistes en passant par Montaigne ou les frères Schlegel, l’écriture fragmentaire est protéiforme. Cependant, dans le champ de la théorie littéraire française, elle n’est généralement envisagée que dans son versant aphoristique et définie à partir d’un corpus composé de textes au statut littéraire à la limite d’un autre champ disciplinaire (la critique, la philosophie), majoritairement en langues occidentales, relevant d’une énonciation sérieuse et factuelle dont la fragmentation relève d’une démarche consciente de pensée et d’écriture. Cette thèse a ainsi pour objectif de montrer, à travers le cas particulier de la poétique singulière du fragment chez Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, l’existence d’un fragment non purement factuel, provenant d’une aire culturelle non occidentale, qui s’inscrit plus largement dans cette écriture de la crise qu’est le fragment moderne selon Françoise Susini-Anastopoulos. Les textes d’Akutagawa qui font l’objet de cette étude sont de nature variée : narratifs, autobiographiques, factuels, fictionnels, aphoristiques ou encore poétiques, ils relèvent néanmoins d’une même esthétique fragmentaire. En confrontant ces textes d’un écrivain japonais du début du XXe siècle aux réflexions théoriques tant japonaises que françaises sur les écritures brèves discontinues, nous tentons de redéfinir les contours d’une écriture fragmentaire littéraire tout en proposant une nouvelle grille de lecture pour des textes divers pour lesquels la catégorisation générique est souvent problématique. Le fragment chez Akutagawa s’articulerait ainsi autour de deux pôles : un brouillage du cadre générique dans lequel s’inscrit le texte, ainsi qu’une énonciation ironique, souvent secondée par un usage prégnant de l’intertextualité. / Fragmentary writing is difficult to define. It is, first of all, the result of a pragmatic, intuitive understanding: a text is called fragmentary when it is perceived as such. From Heraclitus, Montaigne, the Schlegel brothers to the surrealists, fragmentary writing takes many forms. However, in French literary theory, it is often limited to aphoristic texts. Its corpus is made of literary texts mostly written in European languages, which could also belong to another field (like critic or philosophy), which are non-fictional, and where fragmentation is a conscious, voluntary process of thinking and writing.This thesis aims to show, through the concrete example of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s poetics of fragmentary writing, the existence of a fragment outside the fiction / non-fiction dichotomy, from a non-western cultural area, which belongs to the modern fragment as crisis literature defined by Françoise Susini-Anastopoulos.In this thesis, we look at various texts written by Akutagawa. Be they narrative, fictional, non-fictional, autobiographical, poetic or aphoristic: all these texts have a common fragmentary aesthetic, despite their diversity. By reading these texts written by a Japanese writer who lived at the beginning of the 20th century under the light of Japanese and French critical works on short and discontinuous writings, we are trying to redefine the outline of a literary fragmentary writing while suggesting a new way of reading them beyond the very different generic categories they are usually thought to belong to. Accordingly, two features could describe Akutagawa’s fragmentary writing: a problematical generic categorization deliberately constructed in the texts, and an ironic voice, which is often accompanied by intertextuality. This thesis aims to show, through the concrete example of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s poetics of fragmentary writing, the existence of a fragment outside of the fiction / non-fiction dichotomy, from a non-western cultural area, which belongs to the modern fragment as crisis literature defined by Françoise Susini-Anastopoulos.In this thesis, we look at various texts written by Akutagawa. Narrative, fictional, non-fictional, autobiographical, poetic, aphoristic: all the texts have, despite their diversity, a common fragmentary aesthetic. By reading these texts, written by a Japanese writer who lived at the beginning of the 20th century, under the light of Japanese and French critical works on short and discontinuous writings, we are trying to redefine the outline of a literary fragmentary writing while suggesting a new way of reading problematical texts in terms of literary genre. Accordingly, two features could describe Akutagawa’s fragmentary writing: a problematical generic categorization deliberately constructed in the text and an ironic voice, which is often accompanied by a prominent intertextuality.