Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory In Japanese Noh Theater by Susan Blakeley Klein (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory In Japanese Noh Theater by Susan Blakeley Klein
• Justine Wiesinger

DANCING THE DHARMA: RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL ALLEGORY IN JAPANESE NOH THEATER. By Susan Blakeley Klein. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2021. 401 pp. Hardcover, $70.00.

Susan Blakeley Klein’s Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory in Japanese Noh Theater makes a compelling argument for attention to the context of the period in which noh plays were written and to the reception practices and strategies that late medieval people might have brought to the work in the fourteenth century. Klein tells us that in the twentieth century, noh was typically appreciated and taught in a universalized, ahistorical mode that ignored or minimized the context of each play’s original performance circumstances, contemporaneous esoteric religious interpretations, and heritage of literary allegories (p. 8). By bringing forward these aspects through reference to the context of production as well as the “secret” literary and religious knowledge to which the composers and some receivers of these works were privy, Klein provides examples of how a reader can derive more richly layered and consequential understandings of what a play was intended to communicate in its time. In some cases, these understandings have been lost centuries ago, resulting in revisions or abandonment of texts whose meanings or intent became unclear due to reliance on specific subtextual knowledge. Klein’s textual strategies therefore offer the possibility of revitalization for “difficult” plays and new appreciation of the impact of others.

Dancing the Dharma is organized in three parts. Part 1 of the book lays the groundwork for Klein’s later analyses, introducing medieval practices of allegoresis and poetic appreciation. She shows that polysemy and multiple identities were key to the reception of texts, particularly classical texts, at the highest level. This practice of allegorical interpretation itself has political import in the medieval period as a way to work around inconsistencies in classical texts in order to strengthen the cachet of Japan’s culture. At the same time, Klein [End Page 224] points out that multivalent readings also had religious potency in a syncretic belief system that paired foreign and domestic deities, allowing a single figure appearing in a play to maintain multiple identities. These layers of identity and interpretation especially proliferated as prominent historical people depicted in noh plays were vested with secret divine identities. The multiplicity of identity also offers enhanced opportunities to create resonances between dramatic characters and noh patrons’ favored deities. Although the supposedly deeper multilayered meanings of poetry and fictional texts were initially closely guarded secrets, Klein points out that by the fifteenth century they had become a part of popular culture, and the pleasure of esoteric interpretation proliferated. Finally, she argues that Zenchiku’s treatise Meishukushū shows a deep affinity for punning, polysemy, and nondual identity convergences.

Parts 2 and 3 apply Klein’s strategy of reading for allegory and secret meaning in the fashion of a medieval literary devotee to specific plays. Part 2 focuses on plays with connections to the circa tenth century Ise monogatari and its esoteric commentary traditions, primarily analyzing the plays Unrin’in, Oshio, and Kakitsubata. Part 3 is devoted to plays with meanings derived from commentaries of the poetic anthology Kokinshū (c. 920), examining Ominameshi and Haku Rakuten.

Klein makes important interventions in this history of noh reception by explaining why certain plays fell out of favor as their context was lost, or what specific plays may have been intended to communicate to a highly specific audience with knowledge of current events as well as fashionable practices of textual interpretation. For this reviewer, the interpretations of Oshio (formerly known as Oharano hanami) were the most impactful in this regard. Perhaps the most documented of the plays presented, the circumstances of Oshio’s first performance in 1465 at a noh competition among the four most prominent troupes are known in detail, creating a fruitful ground for allegorical and circumstantial analysis. Klein presents a highly convincing view of choices made deliberately to seek favor in the competition. For example, the play is set on cherry-strewn Mount Oshio, which is visited by the spirit of Ariwara no Narihira (825...