ABSTRACT
The literary element in all early librettos was kept strictly subordinate to a liturgic purpose. In Kagura we found no conscious incongruity when vulgar love-songs appeared in Shinto ceremonial, because those who effected and those who observed the union cared only for the music and the dance, which clothed the words with a significance quite independent of their literal or original meaning. Utai (Noh libretto), in spite of their beauty, are tenuous in plot and simple in structure, special compositions for a clearly defined purpose—that purpose being presentation in song and dance for religious or aesthetic satisfaction. Whatever may have been spontaneous in their antecedent forms was sternly brought into subjection to this purpose by a selfconscious art. It is evident that the writers of these utai, in seeking to express emotion, for example, sought not words whereby to give utterance, but an atmosphere through beauty of sound and magic of movement, together with an association of ideas not clearly expressed, or even consciously understood—an atmosphere designed to arouse appropriate feeling in those under their influence. The appeal was not primarily to the intellect or to the emotions through the intellect, but to deeper centres of being through those subtler channels of approach utilized among all peoples by those skilled in the exercise of religious influence. The effect likely to be produced by the words alone was entirely disregarded.
