Introduction -- Part I: Allegory and the commentary tradition in poetry and noh -- Establishing the frame: Allegory, commentary, narihira -- The six poetic modes: A medieval understanding of allegory -- Zenchiku, Meishukushu, and allegoresis -- Part II: Ise Monogatari commentaries and Noh -- Early Noh and medieval commentaries on Ise Monogatari -- A storm of blossoms: An unstable Narihira in Unrin’in -- Spellbound by blossoms: Oshio as political and religious allegory -- The color of love: Desire and enlightenment in Kakitsubata -- Part III: Kokinshu commentaries and Noh -- Turning damsel flowers into lotus blossoms: Female soteriology in Ominameshi -- Emerging from the waves: Sumiyoshi as protector of Japan in Haku Rakuten.
Summary:
"Dancing the Dharma examines the theory and practice of allegory by exploring a select group of medieval Japanese noh plays and treatises. Author Susan Blakeley Klein demonstrates how medieval esoteric commentaries on the tenth-century poem-tale Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise) and the first imperial waka poetry anthology Kokin wakashu influenced the plots, characters, imagery, and rhetorical structure of seven plays (Maiguruma, Kuzu no hakama, Unrin'in, Oshio, Kakitsubata, Ominameshi, Haku Rakuten) and two treatises (Zeami's Rikugi and Zenchiku's Meishukushu). In so doing, she shows that it was precisely the allegorical mode-vital to medieval Japanese culture as a whole-that enabled the complex layering of character and poetic landscape we typically associate with noh. Understanding noh's allegorical structure and paying attention to the localized historical context for individual plays, argues Klein, are key to recovering their original function as political and religious allegories. Now viewed in the context of contemporaneous beliefs and practices of the medieval period, noh plays take on a greater range and depth of meaning and offer new insights into medieval Japan to readers today"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.