일본 전통예능으로서의 노(能)의 발견

Abstract

This study examines how the history of traditional entertainment ‘Noh’ (which is referred to as the oldest and the very Japanese one) has been made. Noh Theater which can be compared to western opera theaters was founded and transformed as an exclusive theater only for Noh. This directly shows the process of its transformation into modern ‘Noh-gaku’ which went through the severance and crisis of pre-modern Noh caused by Meiji Restoration. The point we should keep in mind is that regeneration discourse of Noh’s modernization as well as classical personification itself has been reconstituted due to the need of establishing the history of Japanese literature and art history. However, the metaphor of ‘Japanese Opera’ is not to state that ‘Noh-gaku’ should be revived as a representative of Japanese entertainment. This is intertwined with the problem of discrimination with Kabuki which was in a popular position more than ‘Noh-gaku’. In addition, Zeami has tactfully standardized ‘Noh’ which was nothing more than a petty accomplishment until the Middle Ages and raised it to the artistic stage. It was at least after 1909 that Zeami was highly appraised as ‘Japan’s Wagner’. Although this was a reflection of research result where Zeami’s books (which were secretly passed down for generations) were discovered and introduced to the academic world for the first time, modern notion of literature such as the genre of dramatic literature and author’s creation was controversial from the very beginning. In conclusion, this study points out the problem of original studies which have uncritically accepted the history of Noh-gaku’s revival in the early Meiji era. This study is just a mere public opinion; however, it is for the full-scale study on the argument which had created an ideological boom in 1930’s due to the combination of Japanese discourse and various remarks on Noh and Zeami.