Zeami Motokiyo - Legacy

Legacy

Zeami is known as the foremost writer of Noh and the artist who brought it to its classical epitome. Scholars attribute roughly 50 plays to him, many of which have been translated into European languages. The contemporary versions of his plays are sometimes simplified. Some of his plays are no longer extant, and roughly 16 exist only in the form of rare manuscripts.

There are few extant biographical documents of Zeami, the lack of solid information about his life has led to a significant amount of speculation. Some common themes in the speculation are that Zeami could have been a spy, a Ji sect priest, or a Zen master.

Zeami's treatises were not widely available after his death, only the upper-class warriors were able to gain access to them. In 1908, several of the treatises were discovered at a used-book store in Japan. They gained wider circulation after this discovery but a complete set was not published until 1940. Zeami's plays have been continually performed in Japan since they were first written.