ABSTRACT
In the 1880s, when the Japanese first began to examine their own literary heritage in light of their newly acquired knowledge of Western literature, the fame of Shakespeare in England, Goethe in Germany, and Racine in France induced them to search their own dramatic literature for a Japanese equivalent. The Japanese possessed a rich tradition of theater: the Noh drama, perfected in the fourteenth century, had enjoyed the patronage of the shoguns for almost 500 years, and the Kabuki theater of actors and the Bunraku theater of puppets, both developed in the seventeenth century, had enjoyed the favor not only of the commoners but of many members of the samurai class. However, even though the plays, especially those written for the Noh theater, contain magnificent poetry, no one had ever thought of the dramatists as poets, and the plays themselves had not been elevated to the rank of “literature.” The task of the playwright had traditionally been to provide suitable vehicles for the talents of the actors at his disposal, and it was usual to rewrite plays when they were revived so as to meet the demands of new actors and new audiences. The authorship of many of the best-known plays was uncertain; virtually every superior Noh play—about half of the repertory of some 240 plays—was for centuries attributed to Zeami (1363–1443), though modern scholars grudgingly give him credit for no more than 25. The authorship of Kabuki and Bunraku plays, a matter of small interest to the audiences, was complicated by the practice of having three or more dramatists collaborate in writing a single long play, each man composing several acts. There was certainly no Japanese dramatist who occupied the place of importance in his countrymen’s esteem comparable to that enjoyed by Shakespeare, Goethe, or Racine.
