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Noh, or Accomplishment: A Study of the Classical Stage of Japan
The spirit is at the essence of Noh. Kannami Kiyotsugu combined elements of other Japanese theater with Zen Buddhism to create the form, while his son Zeami Motokiyo perfected it. Zeami, the "Shakespeare of Noh, " wrote more than 100 of the approximately 240 plays that today constitute the still-active repertoire.
Noh reflects its spiritual progeny by conveying the belief that beauty lies in suggestion, simplicity, subtlety, and restraint.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1917
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 21, 2026
since the dawn of time, white boys have always loved japan.
I feel the need to write a very serious and genuine review of this book, solely because this book is so under the radar in terms of seer hilarity. for context, think of the most goofy person you know. okay, so ezra pound is probably 100x sillier. also consider that he's deeply unhinged and also evil.
Ezra doesn't really know japanese. despite this, he decides he's going to do some translating. now, if you don't know a language, it's already a bit of a nightmare to translate something, but it's even worse when it's japanese. on top of that, the subject of translation is something as culturally dense as a Noh play. at the time, Ernest Fenollosa had gone to japan and taken loose notes detailing 12 noh plays. This was the western world's first contact with what is a mostly visual form of art with minimal spoken word. Because ezra can barely grasp the concept of the plays himself, paired with the fact that he's working solely off some dead dudes notes, and has no way to clarify anything, and can't even properly read the notes he's working off of because he doesn't speak japanese, it becomes overwhelmingly clear that he's crashing out. after translating each play, ezra would look at his 20 or so lines of utterly incoherent dialogue, and just loose his shit. tears streaming down his cheeks from rage, he begins to write to the reader after the end of every play, trying to justify everything he's ever done. he essentially keeps begging the reader to "trust me bro." when it is particularly bad he just starts attacking the character of the reader if they don't understand the nonsense ezra is saying it's their own fault. constantly ezra is comparing the plays to western works such as dante because his mind cannot fathom that a society never had contact with these western classics. he keeps insisting that the plays are something that they're not, and uses the loose framework and minimal dialogue to force imagist ideas on it. the entire work comes across as a mentally unhinged dude conspiracizing about noh plays and their meaning.
later on in life Ezra admitted that this book was a failure.
Now. I only read this book in the hopes that it would help me understand the cantos slightly better. around the time of this translation, Ezra started to become infatuated with chinese and japanese language, despite not really understanding either language. I was hoping this was somehow the catalyst, but sadly this is clearly not and instead a product of said infatuation.
this book is insane. i would never recommend it unless you wanted to end up feeling confused.
I feel the need to write a very serious and genuine review of this book, solely because this book is so under the radar in terms of seer hilarity. for context, think of the most goofy person you know. okay, so ezra pound is probably 100x sillier. also consider that he's deeply unhinged and also evil.
Ezra doesn't really know japanese. despite this, he decides he's going to do some translating. now, if you don't know a language, it's already a bit of a nightmare to translate something, but it's even worse when it's japanese. on top of that, the subject of translation is something as culturally dense as a Noh play. at the time, Ernest Fenollosa had gone to japan and taken loose notes detailing 12 noh plays. This was the western world's first contact with what is a mostly visual form of art with minimal spoken word. Because ezra can barely grasp the concept of the plays himself, paired with the fact that he's working solely off some dead dudes notes, and has no way to clarify anything, and can't even properly read the notes he's working off of because he doesn't speak japanese, it becomes overwhelmingly clear that he's crashing out. after translating each play, ezra would look at his 20 or so lines of utterly incoherent dialogue, and just loose his shit. tears streaming down his cheeks from rage, he begins to write to the reader after the end of every play, trying to justify everything he's ever done. he essentially keeps begging the reader to "trust me bro." when it is particularly bad he just starts attacking the character of the reader if they don't understand the nonsense ezra is saying it's their own fault. constantly ezra is comparing the plays to western works such as dante because his mind cannot fathom that a society never had contact with these western classics. he keeps insisting that the plays are something that they're not, and uses the loose framework and minimal dialogue to force imagist ideas on it. the entire work comes across as a mentally unhinged dude conspiracizing about noh plays and their meaning.
later on in life Ezra admitted that this book was a failure.
Now. I only read this book in the hopes that it would help me understand the cantos slightly better. around the time of this translation, Ezra started to become infatuated with chinese and japanese language, despite not really understanding either language. I was hoping this was somehow the catalyst, but sadly this is clearly not and instead a product of said infatuation.
this book is insane. i would never recommend it unless you wanted to end up feeling confused.
Displaying 1 of 1 review