Dancing the Dharma : Religious and Political Allegory in Japanese Noh Theater / Susan Blakeley Klein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Klein, Susan Blakeley, author.

Series:

Harvard East Asian monographs ; Volume 435.

Harvard East Asian Monographs ; Volume 435

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Allegories.

Allegory.

Nō plays.

Symbolism in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Harvard University Asia Center, [2021]

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 wakashū 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 Meishukushū). 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.

Contents:

Introduction

Part I: Allegory and the commentary tradition in poetry and noh

Establishing the frame: Allegory, commentary, narihira

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

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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-68417-623-9

OCLC:

1313643484

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9781684176236 DOI