Author Description

Pocket Edition "The enemy was now everywhere." The wordplay presents another layer, “Snow everywhere”. At once, the audience is thrown into the scene of endless snow, along with one’s desperation of being chased by an enemy. Questioning the ordinary, wordplay is poetry relying on the game of chance between separate words. If rhyme is the game of chance between syllables, then wordplay is the game of chance between words. Taking us not only to the joy of recurring sound, but the metaphysical joy of recurring two images in one dimension. This anthology presents select passages from 19 Noh plays, with various themes such as love, death, loss, comedy, revenge and Buddhism with characters such as Samurai warriors, young princesses, ghosts, old fishermen etc. Followingly, this edition includes the first English translation of an essay on Noh theater by the French poet Paul Claudel. Aimed at providing modern perspectives on this ancient art form. This edition will give the pleasure of reading in English the poetry and wordplays of ancient Japanese literature. Yoshikaze Kawakami is currently a graduate student at Waseda University, Tokyo. He is a researcher of classical Japanese literature and culture.