The Noh plays of Japan have been compared to the greatest of Greek tragedies for their evocative, powerful poetry and splendor of emotional intensity.

The authors offer a detailed examination and explanation of Noh, the first great Japanese theatrical form. The spirit is at the essence of Noh, as Kannami Kiyotsugu created the form in the late-fourteenth century by combining elements from Japanese theater with Zen Buddhism. The authors present the history, explain the nuances, and even provide samples of these Noh plays.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... FENOLLOSA ON THE NOH The Japanese people have loved nature so passionately that they have interwoven her life and their own into one continuous drama of the art of pure living. I have written elsewhere 1 of the five Acts into which this lifedrama falls, particularly as it reveals itself in the several forms of their visual arts. I have spoken of the universal value of this special art-life, and explained how the inflowing of such an Oriental stream has helped to revitalize Western Art, and must go on to assist in the solution of our practical educational problems. I would now go back to that other key, to the blossoming of Japanese genius, which I mentioned under my account of the flower festivals, namely, the national poetry, and its rise, through the enriching of four successive periods, to a vital dramatic force in the fifteenth century. 1 "Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art," by Ernest Fenollosa. London: Heinemann, 1911. Surely literature may be as delicate an exponent of a nation's soul as is art; and there are several phases of Oriental poetry, both Japanese and Chinese, which have practical significance and even inspiration for us in this weak, transitional period of our Western poetic life. We cannot escape, in the coming centuries, even if we would, a stronger and stronger modification of our established standards by the pungent subtlety of Oriental thought, and the power of the condensed Oriental forms. The value will lie partly in relief from the deadening boundaries of our own conventions. This is no new thing. It can be shown that the freedom of the Elizabethan mind, and its power to range over all planes of human experience, as in Shakespeare, was, in part, an aftermath of Oriental contacts--in the Crusades, in an intimacy...

This outstanding, scholarly work by an American-born authority on Chinese and Japanese art and literature, edited and translated by one of the most ambitious, influential, and innovative poets of the first half of the 20th century, provides Western readers with a valuable interpretation of an important aspect of Japanese culture. In addition to the complete translations of 15 plays, the text discusses historical background and development of the Noh theater.