Customer Reviews

Zeami's Style: The Noh Plays of Zeami Motokiyo

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Having been studying Noh casually for the past couple years, I've run into the serious limitation of not being able to understand much Japanese language. For me, this book proved to be an excellent resource, providing an understanding of Zeami himself, as well as his plays and how they have changed over the centuries.

There are many specifics I never really understood about different types of Noh singing. This book goes into basic detail about how the voice of the singers rise and fall in a certain manner, and how verses are sung or chanted in a certain meter. Having actually tried Utai, or Noh singing, it was a wonderful reinforcement of my understanding, while filling in some of the many gaps in my knowledge.

But, my interest in Noh was really fed by this book in the details and analysis given of the plays themselves.

In the three main sections, covering three of the "Modes" of plays, the "Aged Mode", the "Woman's Mode" and the "Martial Mode", the author provides the text of several plays in Romanized Japanese as well as their english translations.

For me, having to learn some of the small songs sung in Noh study, the Koutai, this is an invaluable resource. To be able to understand exactly where in a play a song comes from, and to better understand its meaning and the context in which it appears is SO enlightening.

There are other books that include the texts of famous plays, but the more common ones don't expect you to need to compare the translations with the original text.

The following is one such book:
Japanese No Dramas (Penguin Classics)
It's interesting to read, but not all that useful if you want to actually study the plays in detail.

However, "Zeami's Style", has lead me to take a greater interest in other books which promise to be equally interesting and useful, having the complete texts in romanized Japanese as well the english translations, such as the following:
Troubled Souls from Japanese Noh Plays of the Fourth Group: Kanawa, Semimaru, Kogo, Eboshi-Ori, Jinen Koji and Kagekiyo (Cornell East Asia, No. 95) (Cornell East Asia Series)

In any case, for anyone who is truly interested in studying Noh in detail, I think "Zeami's Style" is an excellent resource.