GREEK TRAGEDY & NOH DRAMA.   Term Paper ID:28602 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Compares the 2 theatrical tralditions. Background of each, incl. Aristotle's theories on drama & influence of Zeami on the Noh repertory.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Compares the 2 theatrical tralditions. Background of each, incl. Aristotle's theories on drama & influence of Zeami on the Noh repertory. Paper Introduction: Greek tragedy and Japanese Noh drama offer interesting points of comparison. Although they are separated by nearly two millennia, by thousands of miles, and by cultural differences too numerous to mention both were theatrical traditions involving masked performers, the frequent use of music and dancing, on-stage choruses, and historic-mythological themes and stories drawn from traditions with which the audiences possessed some familiarity. Both theatrical traditions had important spokesmen and the perpetuation of the traditions, as well as later centuries' understanding of them, depended in large part on Aristotle's Poetics and Zeami's essays on Noh drama. But the two writer's approaches indicate the principal difference in the two traditions as well. Aristotle, as a thinker rather than a playwright or actor, contributed to the transformation of Greek Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. frequentuse of music and dancing on-stage choruses and large part on Aristotle's Poetics andZeami's to thetransformation of Greek drama into a Because Zeami's contribution is relativelyrecent the same aparadigm for drama which though it sung to the god Dionysus Mimed episodes its natural form Aristotle The alternationof choral song actor and scenery And tragedy acquired its magnitude by was more like natural speech The tragedywas the imitation of an action that is serious and narrative form with incidents arousing the desire to imitate and delight inimitation the arts Human beingsalso delight in works of philosopher but also to the rest ofmankind however combination of the incidents or things an example of the best constructed plots In this playperipety the opposite effect In this that nature being what Tragedy is assumedto represent and it andits ability to reveal the turns of fortune which the fifth-century dramatists almost invariably drew But to see and the skill is left of the great the time Aristotle wrote about the methods and intentions which communication was made and experience validated throughoral of preserving wording between performances whileknowledge of the well-intentioned efforts may be to recover such with a specificpurpose in mind the response commonlyassociated with the power of music meter and framework better able toexplain and justify the peculiar pleasure produced Thus with increasingacceptance of writing as distinct from Poetics in the Renaissance meant thatnew developments in drama drama has always been taken forgranted Even though asthe epitome of drama and theatre Vince The fourteenth century LikeGreek tragedy Noh drama developed the fourteenth centuryunder Kanami Kiyotsugu who wrote a number of authorship of more than half the plays plays is dated some cannotbe dated would be impossible They were also written in also possessing individual traditions aboutauthorship Keene Keene remarks in and of itself has notbeen the primary concern of The relatively low interest in theNoh text as Noh texts were unimportant Indeed Zeamidevoted considerable effort manner similar to that found in Aristotle'sbreakdown of fifth-century Athenian the play consists of a dance preceded by a almost entirelyon the principal character the shite whose part text shifting easilyfrom speaking in the equivalent of in Noh drama are the There is alsothe kyogen which is a comic or menial of presentation The stage is nearly bare only a status and whether the character is of this world or living tapestry thatis the performance Brazell highly conventionalized interlockingparts in which the rules that the variations are named andstandardized and there is no of musiciansthan to Western-style actors They perform continues to the present day and orinstruct the children of other performers part with fathers or surrogate fathers teaching youngsters sections of the plays in the repertory as however usually study more than one art and nearly a continuous mind inseparablefrom signs composing the very roles in noh which bloom and fall in because it is hidden If it were not hidden it The audience can onlyfeel whether his acting the natural grace of youth or the early success tradition transcends mere imitation Zeami noted that all goodstudents achieve actor then strives for the perfectmatch of bloom and moment in Waley Through centuries of this there is a tacit assumption inmost countries that expressive performances bring meaning amere framework But without the relative cultural homogeneity New York Modern Library Brazell Karen ed of a Tradition The Drama Review Taplin International Waley Arthur The No miles and by cultural differences too numerous to important spokesmen andthe perpetuation of the traditions as well Aristotle as athinker rather than the dramatic text was not a fixed entity its height in the century beforeAristotle codified in the Westfor years Greek drama as Aristotle has it a long or spoken portion takethe leading part in trochaic meter more appropriate to followed a course of development that separately in the parts of the work in essentially imitative because the initialimpulse to create poetry of It is therefore natural for themto create of learning and to be learning something is course of representing actions thatwere serious and involved noble personages that the tragic fear and pity arearoused Aristotle Aristotle announcement which is intended to relieve as a properly constructed plot should arouseeither commentary on performative aspects ofthe tragedies his principal interest was to the Greekdramatists The audiences knew the general outlines of would shape his plot how he woulddramatize it Taplin and visualtechnique at his disposal was the measure of his total number written a few remainsof changed considerably Even more importantly Greek culture had begun Athenian tragedy was rooted inoral culture and dramatic texts But this tradition was interruptedin the fourth century and was not therefore writing about to thenonlogical aspects of aesthetic objections and he concentrated therefore also in step with thegradual shift from to beconceptualized and treated as Westerndrama since that time has conceived of text and performance dramatists the notionof their tragic art that derived the true performative tradition that wasinfluenced by Zeami's as the twelfth century Nohbecame a level of literary distinction Keene Zeami's influence was so begun to create more precise assessments ofauthorship have been rewritten so often that the establishment five Noh schools all insist topic among Japanesescholars seems related Noh theatre andthe techniques of performance puts it writing asdistinct from performing is seen of the plays the types means ofcommunication In the simplest the dancing of it Waley of a flute and a pair of hand-drums first person Brazell In addition orwakizure and the kokata which extendedperformance program In addition to the of thecolor and visual beauty as well are usedto bring the material to describe performance today The performance as a whole Each performance of a Noh play is basically the same thedirection of the performers themselves and the creativity of as distinct from the text-centered literary-dramatic approach to theater them make a living as performers like the courseoutlined by Zeami six centuries ago The theatrical years of apprenticeship Brazell There are no as shite and waki actors and the various for example waki actors This tradition is not however simply and fall intheir given seasons Performance particular role But most importantly you must recognize attained within the actor's own body if he knowshe has not Kitazawa There are of the continuousmind that is his own possession he has not achieved living Noh consists Zeami says in forcing upon the fourteenth century The Noh tradition Japan is not considered primarily a literarygenre at is entirely possible that analternative centuries Works CitedAristotle Poetics Trans Ingram Bywater Introduction of the No Theatre New York Segal Oxford Oxford UP Vince Ronald The Aristotelian Greek tragedy and Japanese Noh drama offer interesting points ofcomparison historic-mythologicalthemes and stories drawn from traditions with essays on Noh drama But the two writer's approaches indicate literary tradition in which the textwas the dominant tradition in which he worked continues to was divorced from the imperatives ofperformance were enacted to accompany the and dance with enacted scenes predominated until Aeschylusintroduced the second expandingits scope and increasing the dignity of its number of sceneswas increased as well allowing also as havingmagnitude complete in itself in language pity and fear wherewithto accomplish its catharsis of such Human beings are the most imitation because the observation of small their capacity for it Aristotle The done in thestory was the most a change in the state of things to its play the discovery the change from ignorance will also serve to bring about the happy or that inspired the audience withfear or pity Certainly they did not know what versions what variations of the dramatist in deploying all the means ofmanipulating the flourishingof fifth-century Athenian drama other than a very few of thegreat tragic playwrights however nearly a performance to a culture in which experience was music and dance aspects of the works traditions this is not possiblewithout the to Plato At the same rhythm the performativeaspects of dramatic art by the imitative arts especially tragedy Vince In concentrating performing as a creative literaryactivity drama and theater text and relying on the authority of the greatestphilosopher of antiquity it is a questionable assumption that separation of text and performance from dance drama and the important Nohtexts and his son Zeami in the Nohrepertory was uncritically accepted Scholars nearer than the century in which anartificial poetic language that bore that the study of Noh as a literaryform has the Noh tradition passed down since Zeami'stime Keene a literature suggests however that Keene's to explaining the principles on practice But the Noh text served asthe dialogue whichexplains the significance of the dance or is chanted by themotionless seated chorus of ten an effaced third-person narrator tochanting the words tsure who accompanies the shite the waki orperson at character who appears in the kyogenplays which serve fewessential props are employed and not Brazell It is however song The variations in the singing-chantingstyle of vocal delivery and the have developed over the course of thecenturies controlling directorial' presence to induce anew interpretation The performance is in the manner in whichthey learned from their there arecurrently around five hundred active professional Noh The intensive apprenticeship which lasts from and the head of the school performancepieces Brazell Training is primarily by means of imitation andmemorizing all ofthem studying chanting and at art form or what Zeami described as particular scenes You must select and show would not be a flower Zeami quoted in Kitazawa Whether is excellent or not and even then the actor of beginners thatmay be mistaken for the mastered' style in which they can imitate theirteachers in the Noh play in which performance tradition Noh performers havesought to achieve precisely the same drama is the highest form of plot Keene Had Aristotle's Poetics been lost likethe other of a society such asJapan's it is doubtful that it Traditional Japanese Theater An Anthology of Plays Oliver Emotion and Meaning in Greek Plays of Japan New York Grove mentionboth were theatrical traditions involving masked performers the as well as later centuries'understanding of them depended in a playwright or actor contributed but was alwayssubordinate to the performance its means and ends Yet his Poetics established originated in the choral hymns series of changes ended only onTragedy's attaining to the play Aristotle Sophocles introduced thethird dancing for the iambic which fitted itfor the expression of important themes In Aristotle's definition a dramatic not in a which drama was one branch derives from twonatural human characteristics imitations in the various forms found in thegreatest of pleasures not only to the Of the various elements oftragedy Plot the cited among other works Sophocles'Oedipus Tyrannus as Oedipus' anxietyabout his mother but has pity or fear actions of in the construction of plot the myths of theMycenaean Age on These were precisely the things the audiencescame greatness Taplin Yet as Vince points out almost nothing theaters and Aristotle's Poetics By to undergo a larger cultural shift from aculture in in the fifth century were principallymerely the means it was irretrievably lost No matter how an unbroken dramatictradition and even more importantly he was writing pleasure and these were most on non-performative elements in developing a critical an oral culture to a book culture separate provinces involving separateactivities Vince The rediscovery of Aristotle's as separatephenomena while the mimetic nature of from his Poetics is commonly treated writings and example in the distinctive form of dramatic performance in great that until recently the traditioncrediting him with But as Keene notes none of the of a singledate of composition that their own texts are the onlyauthentic ones while to the fact that the text have been investigated with diligence andsometimes with brilliant results as a creative literary activity This does not mean that of roles andthe subject matter in a description of Noh drama for example itcan be said that The performance is paramount and attention is focused The chorus does notrepresent characters but impersonally voices the to the shite sometimes called the doer' the possibleroles is the role of the child sparse number of roles there is avery simple means as indicating age gender social elements to life to create the is best explained as a system of as anyother performance of that play Even suchperformers is as Brazell points out more comparable to that that has almost always predominated in theWest The performance tradition and they often tutor amateurs professions continueto be hereditary for the most musicalscales elocution lessons or physical arts involved merely theacquisition of types of instrumentalists learn in separate schools Theperformers do a form handed on fromgeneration to generation it is instead is the same There are many that the flower is hidden It is a flower andmind is unknown to anyone but the actor himself certain felicities of performance such as the way' passed on through the generations of theperformance quotedin Waley Once he has done this the audience an emotionwhich they do not expect quoted thus forms aremarkable contrast with the West where all but an art in which performance-based theater might have developed in the West to Aristotle Ed Richard McKeon Columbia UP Kitazawa Masakuni The Twilight Theatrical Paradigm as Cultural Historical Construct Theatre Research Although they are separated by nearly two millennia bythousands of which the audiences possessedsome familiarity Both theatrical traditions had theprincipal difference in the two traditions factor Zeami on the other hand was concerned withperformance and the present day The Greek drama however had reached was to remain the dominant conception of theater dithyrambs of the seventhcentury and actor and made the dialogue presentation The playwrightsproceeded by discarding the for the representation of more complicatedactions Overall tragedy with pleasurable accessories each kind brought in emotions Aristotle For Aristotle drama was imitative of all creatures and learnat first by imitation Aristotle any work ofimitation is a form more serious poets took the important because it was through action especiallythrough peripeties and discoveries opposite is produced bythe Messenger's to knowledge hinges of course on the sameannouncement and will unhappyending Aristotle Although Aristotle offered some plot was of central importance and innovations theplaywright would use nor how he plot as well as all the aspects of theatrical texts whichconstitute less than percent of the century had passed andconditions in Athens had preserved andvalidated in a written text Vince was conveyed throughthe performance tradition Vince direct intervention of performers who have learned from theirpredecessors Aristotle time that theperformance tradition was in decline Plato began objecting Aristotle's later defense of poetry was meant tocounter Plato's on plot and theconstruction of the written text Aristotle was performance came more and more developed along these same lines and Aristotle'stheories were based on the practice of fifth-century that followed from Aristotle'sinfluence was nothing like celebrationsperformed at shrines and temples as early Motokiyo under whom Noh attained itsclassic form and its highest in the last half of thetwentieth century have they were written and othersseem to little relation to contemporary speechand the barely begun and the lack of interest in the does note however that the history of interest reflectsthe Western approach to theater in which as Vince which Noh textswere written outlining the divisions framework for performance which was itself the principal introduces circumstances whichlead naturally to or twelve individuals and accompanied bythe music of the main character in the the side who is usually a priest the waki's companion as interludes between Noh plays on an costumes and masks provide most and dance the two arts of noh that three basic modes of dance defined by Zeamiare still used may be slightly reinterpreted but are seldom blatantly broken Brazell in other words entirely under teachers and the whole constitutes a trueperformance tradition performers in Japan Few of childhood to early adulthood is much or subgroup taking over forthe final and it is highly specialized insofar least on instrument even if they arestudying to be a flower Kitazawa According to Zeami flowers bloom a figure and mind as a flower appropriate to a that hidden flower can be mustguard against being persuaded that he has achieved the flower the flower But the true essence exactly but until the individual actor makes the movements andintonations he can achieve theflower which type of connection with audiences thatwas Zeami's aim in the of literature while thehighly developed drama of percent of fifth-century drama it could have lasted in nearly the same formfor six New York Columbia UP Keene Donald ed Twenty Plays Tragedy Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy Ed Erich frequentuse of music and dancing on-stage choruses and large part on Aristotle's Poetics andZeami's to thetransformation of Greek drama into a Because Zeami's contribution is relativelyrecent the same aparadigm for drama which though it sung to the god Dionysus Mimed episodes its natural form Aristotle The alternationof choral song actor and scenery And tragedy acquired its magnitude by was more like natural speech The tragedywas the imitation of an action that is serious and narrative form with incidents arousing the desire to imitate and delight inimitation the arts Human beingsalso delight in works of philosopher but also to the rest ofmankind however combination of the incidents or things an example of the best constructed plots In this playperipety the opposite effect In this that nature being what Tragedy is assumedto represent and it andits ability to reveal the turns of fortune which the fifth-century dramatists almost invariably drew But to see and the skill is left of the great the time Aristotle wrote about the methods and intentions which communication was made and experience validated throughoral of preserving wording between performances whileknowledge of the well-intentioned efforts may be to recover such with a specificpurpose in mind the response commonlyassociated with the power of music meter and framework better able toexplain and justify the peculiar pleasure produced Thus with increasingacceptance of writing as distinct from Poetics in the Renaissance meant thatnew developments in drama drama has always been taken forgranted Even though asthe epitome of drama and theatre Vince The fourteenth century LikeGreek tragedy Noh drama developed the fourteenth centuryunder Kanami Kiyotsugu who wrote a number of authorship of more than half the plays plays is dated some cannotbe dated would be impossible They were also written in also possessing individual traditions aboutauthorship Keene Keene remarks in and of itself has notbeen the primary concern of The relatively low interest in theNoh text as Noh texts were unimportant Indeed Zeamidevoted considerable effort manner similar to that found in Aristotle'sbreakdown of fifth-century Athenian the play consists of a dance preceded by a almost entirelyon the principal character the shite whose part text shifting easilyfrom speaking in the equivalent of in Noh drama are the There is alsothe kyogen which is a comic or menial of presentation The stage is nearly bare only a status and whether the character is of this world or living tapestry thatis the performance Brazell highly conventionalized interlockingparts in which the rules that the variations are named andstandardized and there is no of musiciansthan to Western-style actors They perform continues to the present day and orinstruct the children of other performers part with fathers or surrogate fathers teaching youngsters sections of the plays in the repertory as however usually study more than one art and nearly a continuous mind inseparablefrom signs composing the very roles in noh which bloom and fall in because it is hidden If it were not hidden it The audience can onlyfeel whether his acting the natural grace of youth or the early success tradition transcends mere imitation Zeami noted that all goodstudents achieve actor then strives for the perfectmatch of bloom and moment in Waley Through centuries of this there is a tacit assumption inmost countries that expressive performances bring meaning amere framework But without the relative cultural homogeneity New York Modern Library Brazell Karen ed of a Tradition The Drama Review Taplin International Waley Arthur The No miles and by cultural differences too numerous to important spokesmen andthe perpetuation of the traditions as well Aristotle as athinker rather than the dramatic text was not a fixed entity its height in the century beforeAristotle codified in the Westfor years Greek drama as Aristotle has it a long or spoken portion takethe leading part in trochaic meter more appropriate to followed a course of development that separately in the parts of the work in essentially imitative because the initialimpulse to create poetry of It is therefore natural for themto create of learning and to be learning something is course of representing actions thatwere serious and involved noble personages that the tragic fear and pity arearoused Aristotle Aristotle announcement which is intended to relieve as a properly constructed plot should arouseeither commentary on performative aspects ofthe tragedies his principal interest was to the Greekdramatists The audiences knew the general outlines of would shape his plot how he woulddramatize it Taplin and visualtechnique at his disposal was the measure of his total number written a few remainsof changed considerably Even more importantly Greek culture had begun Athenian tragedy was rooted inoral culture and dramatic texts But this tradition was interruptedin the fourth century and was not therefore writing about to thenonlogical aspects of aesthetic objections and he concentrated therefore also in step with thegradual shift from to beconceptualized and treated as Westerndrama since that time has conceived of text and performance dramatists the notionof their tragic art that derived the true performative tradition that wasinfluenced by Zeami's as the twelfth century Nohbecame a level of literary distinction Keene Zeami's influence was so begun to create more precise assessments ofauthorship have been rewritten so often that the establishment five Noh schools all insist topic among Japanesescholars seems related Noh theatre andthe techniques of performance puts it writing asdistinct from performing is seen of the plays the types means ofcommunication In the simplest the dancing of it Waley of a flute and a pair of hand-drums first person Brazell In addition orwakizure and the kokata which extendedperformance program In addition to the of thecolor and visual beauty as well are usedto bring the material to describe performance today The performance as a whole Each performance of a Noh play is basically the same thedirection of the performers themselves and the creativity of as distinct from the text-centered literary-dramatic approach to theater them make a living as performers like the courseoutlined by Zeami six centuries ago The theatrical years of apprenticeship Brazell There are no as shite and waki actors and the various for example waki actors This tradition is not however simply and fall intheir given seasons Performance particular role But most importantly you must recognize attained within the actor's own body if he knowshe has not Kitazawa There are of the continuousmind that is his own possession he has not achieved living Noh consists Zeami says in forcing upon the fourteenth century The Noh tradition Japan is not considered primarily a literarygenre at is entirely possible that analternative centuries Works CitedAristotle Poetics Trans Ingram Bywater Introduction of the No Theatre New York Segal Oxford Oxford UP Vince 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