CRITICISM

Ishii, Tatsuro. “Zeami on Performance.” Theatre Research International n.s. 8, no. 3 (autumn 1983): 190-206.

Analyzes Zeami's theories on the principles of effective nō performance.

Keene, Donald, and Royall Tyler, eds. Twenty Plays of the Nō Theatre. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970, 336 p.

Includes Keene's essay “The Conventions of the Nō Drama,” which discusses the difficulties in establishing a canon of Zeami's works, as well as six of Zeami's plays with brief introductions.

LaFleur, William R. “Zeami's Buddhism: Cosmology and Dialectic in N Nō Drama.” In Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan, pp. 116-32. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

Traces the influences of Zen Buddhism on Zeami's art and thought.

Rimer, J. Thomas, and Yamazaki Masakazu, trans. On the Art of Nō Drama: The Major Treatises of Zeami. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984, 298 p.

Includes, in addition to translations of Zeami's treatises, essays on the background of the treatises and on Zeami's artistic theories. Also features English-Japanese and Japanese-English glossaries and a bibliography.

Ueda, Makoto. “Zeami on Art: A Chapter for the History of Japanese Aesthetics.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 20, no. 1 (fall 1961): 73-9.

Delineates Zeami's views on the nature and technique of nō, particularly the concept of yūgen.

Additional coverage of Zeami's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 203; Drama Criticism, Vol. 7; Literature Resource Center; Reference Guide to World Literature.