Supernatural Beings from Japanese Noh Plays of the Fifth Group

The plays of the fifth group, with their great variety, can be divided into a number of subgroups. However, it is often difficult to draw clearcut lines between groups as classifications differ from school to school, and from one scholar to another. The classification attempted in this book is based strictly on the dramatic and structural characteristics of the individual plays.

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This long-awaited volume presents the fifth and final category of Noh plays, often called kiri-nō, or "ending Noh," because they are staged last in a formal performance. This group comprises fifty of the most active and exciting of all plays in the Noh repertoire. They include deities, ghosts, or living humans, as well as a plethora of supernatural beings such as tengu (strange long-nosed creatures), monstrous creatures, demons, and fiends. The fifth-group Noh with such shite are all supernatural or visional. None of them is totally realistic. These ghosts, deities, and monsters sometimes appear to attack men, sometimes to help them, and sometimes just to tell their stories. Dividing the plays into seven subgroups according to structure, the authors fully analyze their dramatic characteristics. The book includes line-by-line translations of eight Noh representing all of the subgroups, together with the Romanized original Japanese texts, detailed introductions, and running commentaries.