Zeami: Performance Notes (Translations from the Asian Classics)

Zeami, Motoyiko

ISBN 10: 0231139586 / ISBN 13: 9780231139588

Published by Columbia University Press, 2008

About this Item

Minor wear on the corners. Clean pages with no markings. The image in this listing is stock photo for reference. Actual item may differ. Any queries, just ask for photos. Your satisfaction matters!

Seller Inventory # W5-7-18-2025-006

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Zeami: Performance Notes (Translations from the Asian Classics)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: Japanese
• ISBN 10: 0231139586
• ISBN 13: 9780231139588
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 30 ounces
• Seller catalogs:
  • Art & Photography

About this title

Synopsis

Zeami (1363-1443), Japan's most celebrated actor and playwright, composed more than thirty of the finest plays of no drama. He also wrote a variety of texts on theater and performance that have, until now, been only partially available in English.

Zeami: Performance Notes presents the full range of Zeami's critical thought on this subject, which focused on the aesthetic values of no and its antecedents, the techniques of playwriting, the place of allusion, the training of actors, the importance of patronage, and the relationship between performance and broader intellectual and critical concerns. Spanning over four decades, the texts reflect the essence of Zeami's instruction under his famous father, the actor Kannami, and the value of his long and challenging career in medieval Japanese theater.

Tom Hare, who has conducted extensive studies of no academically and on stage, begins with a comprehensive introduction that discusses Zeami's critical importance in Japanese culture. He then incorporates essays on the performance of no in medieval Japan and the remarkable story of the transmission and reproduction of Zeami's manuscripts over the past six centuries. His eloquent translation is fully annotated and includes Zeami's diverse and exquisite anthology of dramatic songs, Five Sorts of Singing, presented both in English and in the original Japanese.

About the Author

Tom Hare is William Sauter LaPorte '28 Professor of Regional Studies in the Department of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. His most recent books are Zeami's Style: The Noh Plays of Zeami Motokiyo and ReMembering Osiris: Number, Gender, and the Word in Ancient Egyptian Representational Systems.