Japanese Noh Drama Research Articles

Yeats’s noh and world drama: foreign form in tandem with local materials

In an essay on the Japanese noh drama, “Fenollosa on the noh,” Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908) provides a unique but reverse case of Franco Moretti’s concept of “world literature.” Moretti argues that “the compromise between the foreign and the local is so ubiquitous” that “the encounter of Western forms and local reality did indeed produce everywhere a structural compromise.” I agree with Moretti that the problem is always a structural compromise between foreign form and local materials in the field of world literature. However, I contend that what is at stake in world literature is rather the problem of balancing between close readings of local/global materials and distant readings of discourse at large in structural reconstruction. Even a prominent critic of world literature like T. S. Eliot fails to see the complicated nature of William Butler Yeats’s transcultural interweaving between the foreign form of the Japanese noh drama and the local materials of Irish plays. In this context, I have attempted to provide a case of balancing between the foreign form of the Japanese noh and local materials found in Irish plays, thereby suggesting a new model for the study of world literature. Stimulated by Pound and Fenollosa’s translations of the noh plays, and having envisioned Japanese noh plays as the visionary model for his future theatre, Yeats had a new vision of world drama by investigating the potential theories of “mask” and “ghost,” thereby anticipating the vision of transcultural/transnational world literature and drama.

Performing Ritual: Physical and Musical Gesture in Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River

Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River (1964) defies traditional genre labels, exhibiting characteristics of opera, Japanese Noh drama, and religious ritual. Set in medieval England and given a Christian theme, Curlew River is based on the Noh play Sumidagawa and uses a unique language of physical gesture inspired by Noh traditions. The integration of these physical gestures with the music is one of the ways in which Curlew River projects an atmosphere of ritual. In this paper I examine two passages from Curlew River, each of which demonstrates a close connection between the development of individual musical gestures and the progression of physical actions performed at the same time. In the arietta “Near the Black Mountains,” sung by the character of the Madwoman, the subtle development of a single musical figure is linked to the gradual transformation of the actor’s posture. A similar relationship is present in the Ferryman’s introductory scene, in which physical movements act as punctuation for a sequence of musical statements. In both instances, musical and physical gesture are integrated into a unified form of expression, the intensity and focus of which lend Curlew River its ritual quality.

Teaching Japanese Noh Drama through Visualizing Space

Teaching Japanese Noh Drama through Visualizing Space

The Throne of Blood: Glocalization of Shakespeare

Akira Kurosawa’s The Throne of Blood is regarded as a classic example of how to glocalize Shakespeare around the world. The movie changes the setting of Macbeth from medieval Scotland to Japan's Sengoku period of civil wars which, with its feudal hierarchy and frequent rebellions against higher authorities, becomes a perfect background for conveying the main themes of the source play: loyalty, ambition, power, violence, etc. The Throne of Blood then employs the genre of samurai movie, which is also a good choice for glocalizing Macbeth in Japan: the samurai movie is not only Japan's native genre but a perfect medium for showing the bloody murders and battle scenes of the source play. The movie also uses the conventions of Japanese Noh drama in acting and mise-en-scene, which not only achieve a number of unique dramatic effects, but also familiarize Japanese audiences with Shakespeare's play so much that they could accept it as their own cultural content. Furthermore, the movie makes a variety of changes in the storyline of Macbeth, many of which are based on Japan's cultural backgrounds, in order to highlight the play's themes as well as increase the general effects of glocalization. The Throne of Blood, nevertheless, has its drawbacks such as its limited ability to convey the deep meanings and pleasing rhythms of Shakespeare's language; however, it compensates the defect by means of visual images, sound effects and acting skills. The movie also tends to reduce the tragic status of Macbeth and its hero, and it lacks Shakespeare's strong sense of satiric humor. One needs to remedy such shortcomings in order to have the artistic level and scale of Shakespeare's work fully maintained when glocalizing it in another culture. Such a successful glocalization like The Throne of Blood can contribute to the development of Shakespeare's plays by lending fresh meanings and forms to them. Experimenting on Shakespeare's plays with another setting and different style can help to develop their infinite potentialities and expand their diversity and universality. Learning from the example of The Throne of Blood, we need to glocalize Shakespeare in Korea with careful preparation, so that Korean audiences can experience Shakespeare's works with more relevance and significance to their own lives.

Cross-Dressing Across Cultures: Genre and Gender in the Dances of Didik Nini Thowok

This paper focuses on two cross-cultural projects involving Didik Nini Thowok, is a cross-gendered and cross-cultural cosmopolitan who is the most popular and successful professional dancer and comedian in Indonesia. Ethnographic accounts of these project and dialogues with some of their performers lead to wider discussions about creative innovation, collaboration, the location of culture in performance, the performance of gender, and the politics of representation. First I analyse the process of transantional collaboration in the creation of Bedhaya Hagoromo (2001), a performance for male cross-dressed dancers which combined the Javanese bedhaya dance with elements from Japanese Noh drama. This collaboration allows an assessment of interculturalism, with its implied relations of cultural domination, and multiculturalism, with its recognition of dialogues between cultural performance practices. Both frameworks reify performance elements as the property of a particular culture; what matters for the performers is the creative collaborative process.Cross-gendered performances also put cultural boundaries to the test while elucidating issues such as aesthetics, appreciation, audiences, play and creative innovation. I analyse performances from an international dance tour of four Asian dancers in which Didik represented Indonesia, 'In Gesture and in Glance. The Female Role Player in Asian Dance and Theatre' (2003) to redress the neglect of theatrical performance in academic accounts of gender cultures and gender reversals. I consider whether this tour reifies cross-dressing as Asian-ness, and whether it assert or subvert stereotypes of 'Asian theatre' by re-examining Asian female impersonation in relation to western drag in terms of theatrical skill and the production of an 'unnatural body' . The Chinese performance in the tour was by a star of yueju opera, normally performed by women, who performed dressed as a man to represent a female cross-dressed performer who represents a man. Concepts such as gender 'doubling' and 'indeterminacy' and neglected forms of female-to-male cross-dressing are being used by Asian scholars to challenge the conventions for the performance of gender roles in everyday life. Didik however uses the concepts 'mystical gender' and 'tranceformation' to situate his own performance practice in relation to academic discourses on cross-gender which are strictly associated with theatrical performance.

Plays Onstage: An Anthology (review)

Reviewed by: Plays Onstage: An Anthology Kristin Crouch Plays Onstage: An Anthology. By Ronald Wainscott and Kathy Fletcher. Boston: Pearson / Allyn & Bacon, 2006; pp. xi + 628. $76.60 paper. Many of us who teach undergraduate or graduate courses in theatre are acquainted with the continual search for an adequate anthology of plays that will allow us to introduce students to a diverse range of historical periods, genres, styles, and playwrights. We want to engage students and familiarize them with a core group of dramatic texts appropriate for beginning theatre students. Yet, we also hope to find a volume that students might retain as a foundation for upper-level coursework and as support for their further development as scholars and artists. This new anthology, compiled by Wainscott and Fletcher, aims to provide an ambitious range of titles within a compact volume of twenty-one plays. It covers the expected playwrights such as Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Brecht, though it includes lesser-seen titles from some of these writers. Instead of Everyman, we have The World and the Child; instead of The Miser or Tartuffe, we have The Hypochondriac; and instead of A Doll's House, we have Ghosts. As another strong point, this volume manages to offer a commendable variety of voices, from Japanese Noh drama to a range of multicultural choices from the American stage: African, Asian, Hispanic, Cuban, and more. Even more impressive within this tight volume is the inclusion of five plays authored by modern women playwrights. Compared with several of the larger available anthologies, this collection does not have the space to include multiple texts by the same playwrights and other educational material such as critical essays or discussion questions. However, this anthology's key strength is its engaging introductory material for each of the plays included. Although only several pages long, each introduction offers seven sections devoted to theatre history, dramatic structure, and unique features: "When the play was new," "The playwright," "Genre, structure, and style," "Important elements of content," "The play in revival," "Special feature," and "Further reading about the play, playwright, and context." These brief selections are clear, concise, appealing, and remarkably informative for their length. With accessible language and writing style, the introductions point out the most distinguishing features of each play and expand on the significant elements of the genre as well as provide important suggestions for further reading. The introductions also help to position each play within the study of dramatic literature in a larger sense by providing links, contrasts, and comparisons among the plays. Not only do Wainscott and Fletcher's introductions discuss the plays from a critical or literary perspective, they situate them as important performance documents, elaborating on the features of key productions from various periods of history, and suggesting the importance of collaboration among all theatre artists in the realization of dramatic literature as theatrical productions. Its companion textbook, Theatre: Collaborative Acts (Pearson / Allyn & Bacon, 2004), builds on this concept and helps the beginning theatre student in an introduction to theatre course to understand the craft and discipline of the theatre as a collaborative art form. An abundance of photographs and illustrations within the introductory textbook help the student to visualize the shift of the dramatic text from the page to the stage. Both textbooks draw attention to the "space" within which theatre is performed, emphasizing the physical power and presence of theatre as performance and as an important cultural and political force within society. The volume has some weaknesses in comparison with other, more comprehensive anthologies available. Space restrictions allow for fewer footnotes than might be desired, especially for students inexperienced with heightened language. The versions of some of the premodern plays do not include line divisions, which can make for difficulties during class sessions if anyone has trouble locating passages under discussion. Furthermore, the twenty-one plays selected for the anthology may not be appropriate for all classroom situations, but, on the whole, this volume makes a solid choice for an introductory course in dramatic literature. It may also be useful as a companion text for an introduction to theatre or theatre history course, or for further studies as students progress through more advanced courses...

Chinese Nuo and Japanese Noh: Nuo's Role in the Origination and Formation of Noh

Chinese Nuo and Japanese Noh: Nuo's Role in the Origination and Formation of Noh MlN TlAN Modern interest in the Chinese ancient Nuo rite and drama did not take a strong hold in China until the final two decades ofthe last century; however, the Nuo rite and drama remain an aspect of Chinese culture that is hardlyknown to theWest.While a fair amount ofresearch on the origins of Japanese Noh drama has been done in the West, no historical investigation has yet been made in a Western language on the role of Chinese Nuo into its origin and formation. This is so in spite of the historical fact that prior to the birth of Noh, the Chinese Nuo rite had long been practiced in Japanese temples, shrines, and fields where Noh was born and developed. The general consensus nowis thatgigaku,gagaku (and its dance form, bugaku), and sarugaku (from sangaku), forerunners of Noh, were forms imported or generated from ancient Chinese Wu music (Japanese: kuregaku) and Tang music and dance (Japanese: togaku), mainly from sanyue (miscellaneous music and plays) and daqu (grand music). In bugaku,the solo dance Ranryo-o (Chinese: LanlingWang) is a variant of the Lanling Wang Ru Zhen Qu (Prince Lanling in Battle) of the Sui and Tang dynasties;1 bugaku'sjo-ha-kyu, the core structure of Noh drama, was adapted from the music and dance structure ofthe daqu developed during the Tang dynasty.The Tang daqu integrates singing,dancing,and instrumental music and consists of three sequences: the sanxu (beginning random sequence facilitated by instrumental music), zhongxu (middle sequence composed primarily by singing), and po (fast exposition accelerated primarily by dancing). Sanyue (sangaku or sarugaku, the latter being a Japanese pronunciation of sanyue) forms the core of sarugaku Noh. 343 344Comparative Drama But a more important influence upon die formation and die character of Noh is the Chinese Nuo rite. While sanyue and daqu influenced the development of Noh in terms of dramatic structure and presentation, the Nuo rite played a significant role in formulating Noh's religious and ritualistic character and features. The present article introduces the Chinese Nuo rite and Nuo theater to theWest from a historical perspective and also attempts to trace the origination and development of Japanese Noh drama2 from the Chinese Nuo rite and other sources. I examine the evolution of the Chinese Nuo rite3 and its influence upon, and incorporation into, the ancient Japanese religious ceremonies that contributed to the formation and development ofNoh drama. I also compare a variety ofmasks used both in Chinese Nuo theater and in Japanese rites of exorcism and Noh theater to identify similarities and to delineate possible connections between them. The Origins and Development of Chinese Nuo The origins ofChinese Nuo, a rite ofexorcism, can be traced back to the beginnings ofChinese civilization. Bythe time oftheXia (c.2205-c.1806 B.C.E.), Shang (c.1783-1134 B.c.E.),and Zhou (c.1134-256 b.c.e.) dynasties , this collective exorcist ritual had evolved into definite forms that were practiced to drive away evils and pestilence and to pray for prosperity , health, and stability for the people, the community, and the nation. According to Lun Yu (The Analects), Confucius once observed a folk Nuo rite with great interest and reverence: "When the men of his village hold their Expulsion Rites, he puts on his Court dress and stands on the eastern steps."4 Lu Shi Chun Qiu (The Annals ofLu Buwei) mentions three Nuo rites practiced in the Zhou dynasty: the State Nuo, the King's (the Son of Heaven's) Nuo, and the Grand Nuo.5 The State Nuo was performed during the third month of spring of the Chinese lunar year:"The people ofthe state perform the Rites ofExorcism, and at each of the nine gates sacrificial animals are torn apart and offerings made [to driveoffevil emanations],in orderto completethe ethers ofspring."6 Theperformance ofthe King's Nuo was ordered duringthesecond month of autumn: "The Son of Heaven then performs the ceremonies to ward off pestilence and avert any occurrence ofplague, to assure the proper Min Tian345 circulation of the autumnal ethers."7 The third month of winter saw...

Deleuze and the Invention of Images: From Beckett's Television Plays to Noh Drama

THE COHPAnATLST DELEUZE AND THE INVENTION OF IMAGES: FROM BECKETT'S TELEVISION PLAYS TO NOH DRAMA Ronald Bogue In 1992, Minuit published a volume of four of Samuel Beckett's television plays (Quad, Ghost Trio, ... but the clouds ..., and Nacht und Träume), accompanied by an essay on Beckett by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, titled "L'Epuisé" ("The Exhausted").1 In his comments on . . . but the clouds . . , Deleuze remarks briefly on the lines from Yeats's poem "The Tower" that give the play its title and then suggests a general affinity between drama and Beckett's television plays, one that Deleuze links to fascination with Japanese Noh drama, an art form that directly and significantly influenced theater. Though Beckett nowhere acknowledges any indebtedness to Noh drama in his own works, Deleuze senses a convergence of interests and sensibilities in Noh drama, theater, and Beckett's television plays, one centered on the concept of drama as a "visual poem"—a theater of the mind and spirit, limited in plot, rich in images , with puppet-like characters and spare, ascetic sets. Deleuze argues that the object of Beckett's television plays is to produce an espace quelconque in which "pure" visual and sonic "images" at the limits of language may arise, and that it is especially in the medium of television that Beckett is able to meet this object. The curious implication of this argument is that there is an essential affinity between Noh drama and television—or at least between Noh drama and television as Deleuze sees it used by Beckett. My purpose is to explore this hypothesis and in the process determine precisely the characteristics of the medium of television as Beckett exploits it and Deleuze understands it. Our story begins with Ernest Fenollosa, a pioneer in Western scholarship dedicated to Chinese and Japanese culture; following his death in 1908, his widow began seeking a writer to whom she could entrust her husband's manuscripts. She had been told that Ezra Pound would be an ideal choice, and in 1913 Pound agreed to edit the papers and develop aesthetically polished versions of Fenollosa's translations, which included renditions ofseveral Noh dramas. Thus began Pound's lifelong fascination with Chinese and Japanese literature, with the concrete fruits of his labor being the 1916 publication of Certain Noble Plays of Japan, "from the manuscripts of Ernest Fenollosa. Chosen and finished by Ezra Pound."2 When Pound began work on the Fenollosa manuscripts, he had just moved to Stone Cottage in Sussex, where he was serving as Yeats's secretary. During the three years Pound spent on the Fenollosa papers, he was in regular contact with Yeats, who was quite taken with Pound's project and with Noh drama in general. Yeats eventually wrote an introduction to Certain Noble Plays of Japan, in which he praised Noh Vol. 26 (2002): 37 DELEUZE, TELEVISION, NOHDRAMA theater and indicated the important influence that Noh was coming to have on his own dramaturgy. In 1917, Yeats staged At the Hawk's Well, the first of several of his plays to be shaped by the conventions of Noh drama.3 For some time Yeats had been seeking a theatrical mode that would be conducive to poetry and spiritual themes, and while completing At the Hawk's Well in 1916, he told Lady Gregory, "I believe I have at last found a dramatic form that suits me" (Tuohy 156). In his introduction to the Fenollosa volume, Yeats noted that "the human voice can only become louder by becoming less articulate, by discovering some new musical sort of roar or scream" (Essays 223), and in Western drama the size of the theater had tended to encourage in actors the development of such a musical roar, to the detriment of true poetry. Movement had also grown "less expressive, more declamatory" (223), and Yeats saw the only antidote to these tendencies to lie in the restoration to the theater of intimacy, "the measure of all arts' greatness" (224). To create this intimacy required distance, he argued, "firmly held against a pushing world" (224), such that "a group of figures, images, symbols, enable us to pass for a few moments into...

Six Circles, One Dewdrop: The Religio-Aesthetic World of Komparu Zenchiku

Noh drama has long fascinated Westerners by its poetic excellence and its dramatic power. To the student of medieval Japanese culture, however, noh writings, especially dramaturgical treatises, are also of immense value as monuments of culture. To uncover the larger patterns of cultural discourse in these theoretical works, Arthur Thornhill presents the first major study in English of the dramaturgical treatises of Komparu Zenchiku (1405-1468?), son-in-law and pupil of the illustrious Zeami and a pivotal figure in the history of Japanese noh drama. The book begins with annotated translations of two of Zenchiku's most important treatises, which delineate a system of seven symbolic categories called six circles and one dewdrop. Especially significant are two commentaries appended to the first treatise and composed by the Buddhist prelate Shigyoku (1383-1463) and Ichijo Kaneyoshi (1402-1481), the renowned court official and scholar of native literature and the Chinese classics. Together Zenchiku's symbolic system and the two commentaries reveal a microcosm of the intellectual and cultural dialogue among the dominant creeds of the Muromachi period--Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto.

Reflections of Inner Life: Masks and Masked Acting in Ancient Greek Tragedy and Japanese Noh Drama

Meanwhile, in the areas of academic and professional theatre, artists and scholars have come to learn a great deal about the subtleties, complexities, and special power of masked acting. One major impetus for this rediscovery has come from the expanding study of theatre forms in Asia, where long and rich traditions of masked acting have survived to the present day. One result of this rediscovery is the re-emergence of the mask in contemporary Western performance. Another significant development is the growing use of the mask as an essential and dynamic tool in actor training schools in America and elsewhere. Yet misconceptions about masks and masked acting are still promulgated in many of the basic scholarly texts about Greek theatre. One misconception which classical scholars have tried to abolish is the nolion that the Greek perfonner's mask and costume were exaggerated and statuesque. The dominant perception of the Greek actor during the first half of this century was of an actor on high platform shoes, with padded costume, elaborate hairdo, and an exaggerated mask contorted with suffering. It is now firmly established that this type of costume emerged after the fifth century B.C. and is more closely associated with the Hellenistic and Roman actor rather than with the classical Greek. However, this conception has been slow in dying and was reinforced in the mind of the public with Tyrone Guthrie's farnous productions of Oedipus Rex and The House of Atreus, which used

Artaud and the Balinese Theatre

When Antonin Artaud saw the Balinese actor-dancers at the Exposition Coloniale held in the Bois de Vincennes late in July 1931 , he was electrified by their perfonnance. Almost instantly, they became one of the major inspirations for his writings on the theatre, and provided him with the central idea for his Theatre de la Cruaute. In the months that followed , Artaud wrote feverishly to Jean Paulhan and others of what he had seen and of the significance of this experience for Western theatre as a whole. The Balinese in one perfonnance revealed what he had been dimly seeking in the Japanese Noh drama, in the Eastern and medieval Jewish mystics, in his work with the Theatre Alfred Jarry. Here at last was a living drama of movement and gesture, stylized but at the same time capable of expressing strong basic emotions; a drama both concrete and abstract that springs from ancient religious and tribal sources, and a time when man was still in direct contact with the natural world and with the ebb and flow of the cosmos; a drama in which music and costume form an integral part of the spectacle, suggesting a wealth of interrelated significances and symbols, both visible and invisible.

Kyogen for Kids: An Examination into the Adaptability of the Japanese Comic Interlude to Western Children's Audiences

KYOGEN FOR KIDS: AN EXAMINATION INTO THE ADAPTABILITY OF THE JAPANESE COMIC INTERLUDE TO WESTERN CHILDREN'S AUDIENCES Children's literature has long been under the mystical spell of the Orient. Tales of the "Arabian Nights," the travels of Marco Polo, and Hans Christian Andersen's beautiful tale of "The Nightingale," have provided feasts for the imagination for over a century. There is something about these faraway lands that stirs the wonder in a child's fancy. It is not surprising then that writers of children's fiction have, over the years, been quick to perceive this interest and have capitalized on it with numerous tales and novels of a pseudo-oriental nature. No less aware, yet somewhat more discriminating, are the children's playwrights who in the post-World War II era have produced a number of these oriental exploitations for the unwary child audience. A few, like Madge Miller's The Land of The Dragon and Betty Jean Lifton's Kap the Ka»»a, warrant some attention while the vast majority (like t ose in children's fiction) are poorly conceived and degrading to both the oriental culture they try hopelessly to emulate and to the child audience compelled to sit through such abominations. One of the more interesting oriental adaptations, the short Brecht plays (performed together) , He Who Says Yes and He Who Says No, inspired by the Japanese Noh drama, have ""Eeen includecTEy Lowell Swortzell in his anthology of plays for children, All The World' s A Stage . These pieces were not written with children specifically in mind but would go far in charming and enlightening the juvenile theatre-goer. The inclusion of Brecht in this anthology for children, particularly when he is anthologized along with others primarily associated with the adult drama, prompts a question: What makes a dramatic work ostensibly for adults popular with children? It can safely be argued I think that, though some children could find pleasure in its performance, George Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion is best suited to the adult stage, yet Aurand Harris ' s Commedia dell 'Arte rendition of the same tale attracts hearty applause and laughter from young and old alike. This brings up a second question related to the first: What makes certain performing styles traditionally adult (e.g. the Italian Commedia) successful for the child audience ? In the case of Commedia it is the recognizable comic types, the simple yet action-packed plot, and the abundant slap-stick comedy which make it a crowd pleaser for all ages. If committed children's dramatists wish to explore similar styles to expand their theatrical possibilities, it may be to the East that they once again turn, particularly to the islands of Japan and to an ancient, rustic performing art form identified as "Kyogen." An indication that perhaps Japanese Kyogen has a potential audience among America's young comes from Francelia Butler, who in her 1977 anthology, Sharing Literature with Children includes the Kyogen piece "BusuT" Butler In including the piece without special alteration for children justifies the form's theatrical possibilities by stating: In some respects they [Kyogen] resemble the Western theater of the absurd in their restraint and their concern with social comment. . . . The broad humor and brevity of ["Busu"] make it a good choice for acting by or for children, (p. 142) Perhaps then, as the styles of Italian Commedia dell 'Arte and the Moliere-inspired French farce have found proper niches within the realm of dramatic literature for children, so too will the Japanese Kyogen. Before the Western audience may stand in a position to evaluate the Kyogen' s potential, it remains a necessity to know something of the origin and practice of the form in its native land and of the classic Noh Drama to which, by tradition, the Kyogen is inextricably fused. There is no Western counterpart to the dramatic world of the Noh; it is almost wholly wrapped up in the history and culture of Japan. Western concepts of stage setting, acting, and musical accompaniment find no parallel in this stark yet poetic form. The production is given on a simple stage floor of highly polished wood connected to the...

At the Hawk’s Well: Yeats’s Unresolved Conflict Between Language and Silence

From earliest times, wielders of words have been painfully conscious of the inadequacy of their medium. Man's innermost thoughts and most subtle emotions elude the grasp of even the craftiest master of language, so that workers in one literary form have always sought the richer resources of another in hopes of finding a tool to convey the fullness of their meaning. Poets and prose-writers alike have repeatedly turned to the drama as the magic means of transcending the limitations of language. Thus, when Yeats discovered Ezra Pound's rendering of the Japanese Noh drama in 1916, he seized upon it as the perfect solution to his own search for a dramatic form. Aristocratic, symbolic, blending verse, music, dance, mask, and folk ritual a perfect harmony of being, these plays seemed to the Irish playwright the ideal means for conveying an intensity of emotion that would enable him to transcend, if only for a fleeting moment, the bounds of time and space, to pass into a deep of the mind that had hitherto been too subtle for our habitation.2 A long struggle towards a fitting medium of poetic drama had preceded Yeats's discovery. As a writer whose forte was intense lyric poetry but who nonetheless felt a deep commitment to resuscitating the ancient Irish heritage and bringing it before the public on the stage, he had rejected out of hand the current trend towards realism as practiced by Ibsen and Galsworthy, and was tirelessly experimenting with new forms. Not the least among his influences were the French symbolists such as Mal-

The Sustained Metaphor In The Only Jealousy of Emer

YEATS'S BORROWINGS from the structure and spirit of the ancient Japanese Noh drama are recognized and regularly subjected to comment and analysis. His indebtedness to Noh's stark structure, its economy of scenery, its minimum of actors, and its underscoring of intense emotions by a few musical instruments for the development of a unique, indirect, and symbolic form of drama, exemplified in his Four Plays for Dancers, has not been overlooked. Yeats's proscription of all unnecessary acting; his use of mask, song, and dance; his delving into the life of the soul, and the images of his verse form are all Noh influences that have been duly weighed and evaluated. Relatively little attention, however, has been given to the poet's perception of language values in the Noh and his appropriation of specific devices such as the sustained metaphor. Yet, Yeats is particularly indebted to Noh for the dominant image which gives unity to his drama.