SOURCE: An introduction to The Old Pine Tree and Other Noh Plays, translated by Makoto Ueda, University of Nebraska Press, 1962, pp. vii-xxiv.

In this essay, Ueda provides a detailed consideration of the conventions of No as prescribed by Zeami.

The Japanese Noh drama has been attracting increasing interest in the West since it was first introduced early in this century. Ezra Pound was fascinated with it and edited some of its earliest English translations; Yeats wrote at least ten plays using the Noh as a model; and it attained an even greater popularity when Arthur Waley published his superb translations in the early twenties. Today it appears in almost every anthology of world literature that includes any Oriental writings at all.

The Noh's popularity is in large part due to its strange, mysterious outlook. This medieval Japanese drama, subtle, remote, and symbolic, offers something quite foreign to the...