Traces in the Way : Michi and the Writings of Komparu Zenchiku

__Traces in the Way__ is simultaneously a critical interpretation of the writings of noh playwright and thinker Komparu Zenchiku (1407–1470); a refutation of received views of Japanese traditional arts (michi); and an analysis of medieval Japanese uses of texts. The disciplinary approach is broadly that of cultural studies, combining close reading, social contextualization, and drawing on multiple fields. The study is organized through the five elements that Konishi Jin'ichi's identified as essential to michi: specialization, transmission, conformity, universality and authority. Each of these is examined critically and revised, providing a basis from which Zenchiku's works can be elucidated. This new approach makes it possible to solve much that in conventional studies has remained puzzling about Zenchiku's works including the principles behind the works of classification, the purposes that resulted in the rokurin ichiro works, and the ideology present in the fragmentary work: Meishukushu. It becomes clear that Zenchiku, far from being a docile recipient of his teacher Zeami's legacy, combined Zeami's texts with those of other michi to radically reposition his own practice in the cultural fields of his day. Zenchiku drew on a range of legitimating styles to fashion a new rationale for performance, one adequate to changing patronage requirements, and appropriate to the circumstances of his troupe. In this position-taking, Zenchiku was strikingly successful, as is witnessed by the survival of the Komparu line through the chaotic century after his death. With this book we come to know a good deal about sarugaku's transmission in the fifteenth century; enough to remedy a facile idealization of Japanese michi.

What is between us and the Christians is a deep dark affair which will go for another hundred generations..." (Amos Oz, Judas )Among the great social shifts of the post–World War II era is the unlikely sea-change in Jewish Christian relations. We read each other's scriptures and openly discuss differences as well as similarities. Yet many such encounters have become rote and predictable. Powerful emotions stirred up by these conversations are often dismissed or ignored. Demonstrating how such emotions as shame, envy, and desire can inform these encounters, Holy Envy: Writing in the Jewish Christian Borderzone charts a new way of thinking about interreligious relations. Moreover, by focusing on modern and contemporary writers (novelists and poets) who traffic in the volatile space between Judaism and Christianity, the book calls attention to the creative implications of these intense encounters.While recognizing a long-overdue need to address a fundamentally Christian narrative underwriting twentieth century American verse, Holy Envy does more than represent Christianity as an aesthetically coercive force, or as an adversarial other. For the book also suggests how literature can excavate an alternative interreligious space, at once risky and generative. In bringing together recent accounts of Jewish Christian relations, affect theory, and poetics, Holy Envy offers new ways into difficult and urgent, conversations about interreligious encounters. Holy Envy is sure to engage readers who are interested in literature, religion, and, above all, interfaith dialogue.

CONTENTS List of figures Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: Traces in the Way 2 Specialization: Sarugaku, Patrons, Komparu Lineage 3 Transmission: Zeami to Zenchiku 4 Conformity: Misreading Zeami 5 Universality: The Theory of Six Circles, One Dewdrop 6 Authority: Meishukushū and the Ideology of Okina 7 Conclusion: Practitioners, the Way, and Secret Writings Bibliography Index