SOAS Research Online

Abstract

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries No plays were given in several different types of entertainment, of which the most important were Sarugaku and Dengaku. The basis of No drama as it is known today was established by two Sarugaku players, Kanze Kanami Kiyotsugu (1333-1384) and his son Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443), and their most important innovation was the absorption into Sarugaku of the music and songs of Kusemai, one of the many minor entertainment forms of the period. The following pages give an account of the parts played by these three entertainments in the development of No by describing various aspects of Sarugaku and Dengaku and, after establishing the original form of independent Kusemai songs, by showing the effect these had on the music and texts of Sarugaku No. The sources used in this were the articles on No written by Zeami and his son Motoyoshi supplemented, wherever possible, by other contemporary material. The object of the thesis is twofold: to give a coherent account, for its own sake, of the most interesting and important period in the history of No; and, by so doing, to provide a background against which other relatlied subjects, such as Zeami's artistic theories, may legitimately be considered.