Nishikigi and Yeats's The Dreaming of the Bones

NISHIKIGI AND YEATS'S THE DREAMING OF THE BONES I THE NOH OF SPIRITSl OF FIVE SORTS OF Noh plays, Yeats and Pound were especially interested in only one-the Noh of spirits. The direct cause of their interest in this form is that in it everything known to Western drama is lacking except the final vision or epiphany. The latter is the whole play. The Noh plays were performed in cycles and are of a meaningful variety-the Noh of spirits being fourth. A cycle of six plays would consist of: (1) A congratulatory piece ("Shugen"), connected withreligious rite, about God's immemorial protection of Japan; (2) A "Shura," or battlepiece, which puts out devils by sympathetic magic; (3) a "female Kazura" in contrast to the male battle-piece-"... After battle comes peace, or Yu-gen, mysterious calm, and in time of peace the cases of love come to pass;" (4) The Noh of spirits; (5) A piece "bearing upon the moral duties of man"-This fifth piece teaches the duties of man here in this world as the fourth piece represents the results of carelessness to such duties; (6) Another Shugen, praising the lords and the reign, and asking a blessing-UTo show that though the spring may pass, still there is a time of its return, this Shugen is put in again just as at the beginning."2 Pound points out that unlike Western drama each cycle of six plays "presents a complete service of life ... a complete diagram of life and recurrence."3 This aspect alone would appeal to both Pound and Yeats, with their anti-progressive historical view. However , the individual mysteries, battle pieces and moralities will "be interesting only to students of folk-lore or of comparative religion." . . . The lover of the stage and the lover of drama and of poetry will find his chief interest in the psychological pieces, or the 1 My subject, the evolution of a dramatic-poetic language appropriate to the drama of perception, is different from that of F. A. C. Wilson's study of Yeats's plays on the Noh model, Yeats's Iconography (London, Victor Gollancz, 1960). Mr. Wilson interprets the plays in terms of traditional symbolism. As he says (p. 13), his book is "not concerned with technique." 2 From the Ka-den-sho, or secret book of Noh, 'Noh' or AccompUshment, by .Ernest Fenollosa and Ezra Pound (London, Macmillan, 1916), pp. 14-16. 3 'Noh' Or Accomplishment, p. 17. 111 112 MODERN DRAMA September Plays of Spirits.... These plays are full of ghosts, and the ghost psychology is amazing. The parallels with Western spiritist doctrines are very curious. This is, however, an irrelevant or extraneous interest, and one might set it aside if it were not bou,nd up with a dramatic and poetic interest of the very highest order.4 The description of this type of Noh play given in the Ka-den-sho is as follows: The fourth piece is OnioN0, or the Noh of spirits. After battle comes peace and glory, but they soon depart in their turn. The glory and pleasures of man are not reliable at all. Life is like a dream and goes with the speed of lightning. It is like a dew-drop in the morning; it soon falls and is broken. To suggest these things and to lift up the heart for Buddha ... we have these plays of ,spirits ("Oni"). Here are shown the struggles and the sips of mortals, and the audience, even while they sit for pleasure, will begin to think about Buddha and the coming world. It is for this reason that Noh is called Mu-jin-Kyo, the immeasurable scripture.5 In these plays the tragic rhythm of life is seen in its final momentwhere will and passion become insight. A reading of Yeats's "Anima Mundi," which contains many references to Japanese drama, will show that the particular fascination of Noh plays for Yeats was partly a result of his belief in spiritism.!} Whether or not we share this belief, we must realize its value to Yeats as an assurance of ultimate insight into the meaning of the soul's history. . . . We...