Bøger af Chifumi Shimazaki

This volume deals with fiendish women, mad persons, mask-less samurai, street artists, and outcasts. The book showcases six masterpieces from the remaining five subgroups of the Fourth Group Noh.

The "fourth-group Noh," so designated because they are performed fourth in a formal five-Noh program, includes almost one hundred plays, and is a group of great variety: some plays are supernatural or visional, others realistic; their leading characters include deities, demons, ghosts, mad people, samurai, and street artists. Dividing them into nine sub-groups, the author fully analyses their dramatic characteristics. Includes translations of four Noh chosen from the first four subgroups. Format is line-by-line translation next to the Romanized Japanese text, with introduction and running commentary.

Translations of six shura (battle)-Noh that have for the main character the ghost of a warrior whose story is told in the Tale of Heike. Each Noh has a detailed introduction and footnotes.

The plays of the fifth group, with their great variety, can be divided into a number of subgroups. However, it is often difficult to draw clearcut lines between groups as classifications differ from school to school, and from one scholar to another. The classification attempted in this book is based strictly on the dramatic and structural characteristics of the individual plays.