Lyric drama
Lyric Drama（1880）The Classical Poetry of the Japanese, Trübner, London [EN]
- viKita Eiu Yeukiyoku Bon (“Book of Lyric Dramas According to the Kita Style “)
- viKuwanze Eiu Yeukiyoku Bon (” Book of Lyric Dramas According to the Kuwanze Style “)
- viiNou Kiyau-Gen (“Comic Interludes of the Lyric Dramas “), M.S.
- viiYeukiyoku Shifu-Yefu Seu (“Gleanings from the Lyric Dramas, a Commentary “), by Zhinkou.
- 8The lyric drama, it is true, arose and flourished during the Middle Ages ; but, though deeply tinged with Buddhist ideas, and though frequently quoting the Chinese poets, it is still, both in form, treatment, and choice of subjects, distinctly national and indigenous.
- 10To these may be added, as quasi-classical, the lyric dramas known by the name of ” Utahi.”
- 13Towards the end of the fourteenth century, in the hands of the Buddhist priesthood, who during that troublous epoch had become almost the sole repositaries of taste and learning, arose the lyric drama, at first but an adaptation of the old religious dances, the choric songs accompanying which were expanded and improved.
- 23The manner of representing the lyric dramas is peculiar.
- 26-27In the case of the Japanese lyric dramas, a more special reason for a free versified rendering is to be found in the peculiar soldering (so to speak) of the style, which has been already touched on, and which makes a literal version not so much difficult as impossible, for the simple reason that there is no logical sense or sentence to be translated, for all that there is to the ear the sweetest poetical sense and music in these vague, unfettered periods, in these ” Notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out With wanton heed and giddy cunning.”
- 135“LYRIC DRAMAS”
- 163* The original of these verses is an extreme instance of the obscurity, logical incoherence, and many-sided application which have been noticed in the Introduction as characteristic of the style of the Japanese lyric dramas.
- 171* The reader will call to mind what was said in the Introduction on the subject of the extreme simplicity which distinguishes the method of representing the Japanese lyric dramas.
- 220This tale forms the subject of one of the lyric dramas, under the title of ” The Washing of the Manuscript.”
- 227The Japanese names of the four lyric dramas there translated are “Ha-goromo,” ” Setsu-shiyau-seki, ” ” Kantamu” and Manjiyuu” by which they will easily be found in any complete edition.
- 129Notes on the Japanese Lyric Drama.
- 130In most of these respects the ” No,” or Japanese lyric drama, differs radically from the legitimate and popular drama of the modern Japanese stage.
- 130This lyric drama sprang up at Kioto in the fifteenth century, at the very moment when the importation of symbolic Buddhism, of Chinese poetry and landscape painting from the continent of Asia had relieved the long strain of previous feudal warfare.
- 2Antiquated persons do doubtless exist here and there to whom Buddhist piety is precious ; others may still secretly cherish the swords bequeathed to them by their knightly forefathers ; quite a little coterie has taken up with art ; and there are those who practise the tea ceremonies, arrange flowers according to the traditional esthetic rules, and even perform the mediaeval lyric dramas.
- 194The pleasures (so-called) of high life were ceremonies well-nigh as solemn as the actual ceremonial of government,—the stately No, or lyric drama, with its statuesque players also in starched robes and chanting in a dialect dead some centuries before, if indeed it ever had been living ; or else the tea ceremonies, or the arrangement of flowers in obedience to the principles of philosophy, or the composition of verses after the model of the antique, or the viewing of scrolls painted according to ancient Chinese canons.
- 195The more modern ones are genuine comedies of manners ; those handed down from the Middle Ages, and ranking as semi-classical because acted as interludes to the No, or lyric dramas, are of the nature of broad farce,—mere outline sketches of some little drollery, in which a leading part is generally played by the man-servant Tarokwaja, a sort of Japanese Leporello, and which always ends in a cut and run.
- 288In our opinion this latter is, with some of the lyric dramas (No no Utai), the cleverest outcome of the Japanese pen.
- 292Several of the lyric dramas are remarkable poems in their way.
- 378For the No or Lyric Dramas, see Article “THEATRE. ‘” of the present work.
- 5Towards the end of the fourteenth century, in the hands of the Buddhist priesthood, who during that troublous epoch had become almost the sole repositories of taste and learning, arose the lyric drama, at first but an adaptation of the old religious dances, the choric songs accompanying which were expanded and improved.
- 6The manner of representing the lyric dramas is peculiar.
- 8While the development of the lyric drama had been widening the scope of the Japanese poet’s activity, a contrary influence was at work to narrow it again to Lilliputian proportions.
- 8After these, the media,val Lyric Dramas; finally, the tiny modern verses, to which we have ventured to apply the name of Epigrams.
- ?” LYRIC DRAMAS “
- 124* The original of these verses is an extreme instance of the obscurity, logical incoherence, and many-sided application characteristic of the style of the Japanese lyric dramas.
- 125* See the “Robe of Feathers,” another lyric drama quoted in extenso in” Things Japanese,” s.v. “Theatre.”
- 131* The reader will call to mind what was said in the introductory note on the subject of the extreme simplicity which distinguishes the method of representing the Japanese lyric dramas.
- 1Among the greatest and most characteristic treasures of the native literature, the Japanese rank their ancient ” lyric dramas,” the No.
- 90It is not a lyric drama, though its lines are chanted rather than spoken.
- 197POETRY—THE NO OR LYRICAL DRAMA—KIOGEN OR FARCE
- 197A far greater interest belongs to a new development of the poetic art which now demands our attention, namely, the No or lyrical drama.
- 53-54The humour of this naturally depends on the ” business” of the performers, since no pretence is made to literary merit in the dialogue, which is couched in colloquial Japanese of the same period as the lyrical dramas themselves that is, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century.
- 156-157Thus, on a double basis, helped on too perhaps by some echo from the Chinese stage, yet independently developed, the Japanese lyrical drama came into being.