SOURCE: Sekine, Masaru. “Five Groups of Noh Plays.” In Ze-ami and His Theories of Noh Drama, pp. 45-70. Gerrards Cross, England: Colin Smythe, 1985.

In the following essay, Sekine describes the five categories of Noh plays defined in the Edo period (1600-1867), comparing them to the classifications used by Zeami.

Noh was less tightly categorised in Ze-Ami's time, and classified much more simply—for example, into pieces about women generally rather than women included in a love-sick or mad framework. Eventually, however, the plays were formally defined, in a way that drew on Ze-Ami's ideas, in the Edo period (1600-1867), as belonging to the categories described below. These five later, more thematic groupings, are still in use today. The number five is in itself a key number within the context of Japanese culture. When used to describe the essence of human existence, it subdivides nature into five component parts...