SOURCE: Fenellosa, Ernest, and Ezra Pound. Introduction to “Noh” or Accomplishment: A Study of the Classical Stage of Japan, pp. 3-19. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1917.

In the following excerpt, Fenellosa and Pound offer a general introduction of Noh to the Western reader, noting the differences between the Japanese and European conceptions of theater. The authors also point out the confusion that has been added to its understanding by scholars, and assert that there is a strong spiritual element to the art form.

The Noh is unquestionably one of the great arts of the world, and it is quite possibly one of the most recondite.

In the eighth century of our era the dilettante of the Japanese court established the tea cult and the play of “listening to incense.”¹

In the fourteenth century the priests and the court and the players all together produced a drama scarcely less...