Session 20—Tu, Nov 1: Yūgen, Nō drama II

Topics

❖ Nō drama: masks
❖ Nō dramas: Two plays about the great female lover Komachi—Adachigahara, Sotoba Komachi
❖ Aesthetic term: yūgen

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

I have never split Nō plays into two sessions. I'm not quite sure yet what I will be doing on this day, but I have distributed the reading over two days so that you can read a little more slowly. Nō perhaps doesn't make a lot of sense just as a script, in English. It needs quite a bit of imagination to get close to its original power.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Read summary of Nō play Noh Adachigahara [bSpace, PDF]
✓ Read full Nō play Noh Sotoba Komachi [bSpace, PDF]
✓ Read read excerpt from philosophical tract by Zeami title Noh Fushikaden [bSpace, PDF]
✓ The PPT on Yūgen is covered in class. You do not need to read this ahead of time but you do need to review it after class and again before exams [bSpace, PPT]

Multimedia notes

❖ An edited "美の壷, Bi no tsubo [Key aesthetic points]" (NHK) segment on No masks that discussed masks from three perspectives: the "spirit" of the mask, expressions (including mask structure), and mask coloration

❖ A DVD made by me that covers basic points of Noh and including some of the associated arts (the cords for drums, costume weaving)

Links

⇢ None.

Other

On bSpace there is a very good article as a PDF, Yūgen by Michael Marra. It is not required but it is useful for understanding the concept.

Terms and such mentioned this day that are not otherwise in an obvious place on the web site, the powerpoints, the assigned reading, etc. (to help with capturing items mentioned, perhaps quickly, in class, not for test purposes)

None. But in the Bi no tsubo segment the word for coloration was 古色 koshoku.