Noh Collaboration:

Ito, Pound, Yeats, Nishikigi, and Certain Noble Plays of Japan

Abstract

Ezra Pound was initially more interested in Noh than in Ernest Fenollosa’s notes on Chinese poetry. The attention paid to “Ezra Pound and China” often obscures Pound’s interest in Noh, his first love in Fenollosa’s notes, and the actual work of the collaboration/s that resulted in the published texts. Pound gained specific ideas and cultivated particular relationships due to his prior attention to Noh. In fact, given the presence of Japanese interlocutors and translators to aid Fenollosa in the creation of his notes which Ezra Pound then went on to utilize, it might be argued that the Noh plays, such as Nishikigi, that Pound published would be “closer” to the originals (given one less level of “translation”), as it were, than his efforts in Cathay, thus, more suited to his purpose of bringing disparate cultures to an understanding rooted in their common humanity