BL. W. B. Yeats

234. Van de Kamp, Peter. ‘Yeats’s Noh-Noh Drama’. Review of Ze-ami and His Theories of Noh Drama, by Masaru Sekine. Irish Literary Supplement 5/1 (1986): 16.

Using Sekine’s work as a starting point, Van de Kamp argues that ‘Fenollosa [see D10] . . . misrepresented Noh drama as ritual’, and thereby ‘may well be held responsible’ for Yeats’s interest in the form; Yeats, for his own part, though he showed ‘instinctive understanding’ of the nô, ‘dressed Fenollosa’s Noh to his own advantage, thus further distancing the Western interpretation . . . from the Japanese original’, to the extent that to ‘encompass both in a comparative study without unduly generalizing either’ would be impossible. Includes notes about a possible Zen influence in Fergus and the Druid (see 26).