A New History of Medieval Japanese Theatre

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

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2. Contexts: Japan in the Muromachi Age

   • Noel John Pinnington

   Pages 1-23

3. Forerunners of Noh Theatre

   • Noel John Pinnington

   Pages 25-50

4. Early Noh and Its Founders

   • Noel John Pinnington

   Pages 51-80

5. Noh in Zeami’s Lifetime

   • Noel John Pinnington

   Pages 81-111

6. The Classic Noh Plays

   • Noel John Pinnington

   Pages 113-145

7. Noh in the Age of Chaos 1450–1600

   • Noel John Pinnington

   Pages 147-178

8. Medieval Kyōgen

   • Noel John Pinnington

   Pages 179-208

9. Back Matter

   Pages 209-225

   PDF

This book traces the history of noh and kyōgen, the first major Japanese theatrical arts. Going beyond P. G. O'Neill's Early Nō Drama of 1958, it covers the full period of noh's medieval development and includes a chapter dedicated to the comic art of kyōgen, which has often been left in noh's shadow. It is based on contemporary research in Japan, Asia, Europe and America, and embraces current ideas of theatre history, providing a richly contextualized account which looks closely at theatrical forms and genres as they arose. 



The masked drama of noh, with its ghosts, chanting and music, and its use in Japanese films, has been the object of modern international interest. However, audiences are often confused as to what noh actually is. This book attempts to answer where noh came from, what it was like in its day, and what it was for. To that end, it contains sections which discuss a number of prominent noh plays in their period and challenges established approaches. It also contains the first detailed study in English of the kyōgen repertoire of the sixteenth-century.

• Masked drama
• Comedy
• Ghosts
• Musical
• Form
• Genre

• Department of East Asian Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

  Noel John Pinnington

Noel John Pinnington is Associate Professor Emeritus of the University of Arizona, USA. He has held appointments at the Universities of Cambridge, Arizona, and Kyushu. His recent work includes 'The Early History of the Noh Play: Literacy, Authorship, and Scriptedness' in Monumenta Nipponica (2014) and collaboration on the film adaptation of the noh play Kinuta, set in Arizona, titled Wind Well (2017).

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