Zeami Motokiyo

Zeami Motokiyo, who lived from about 1363 to about 1443, was a Japanese aesthetician, actor and playwright who transformed Noh theatre during Japan's medieval period. After his father introduced him to Noh performance and he impressed the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, he received an elite education unusual for his lower-class background, and after inheriting leadership of his family's troupe in 1385 he became the most significant figure in Noh's development, writing an estimated thirty to fifty plays that remain central to the repertoire and blending classical Japanese and Chinese tradition with Zen Buddhist themes. He also wrote about twenty-one critical treatises on drama over four decades, including the Fushikaden, the first known treatise on drama in Japan, though these remained largely inaccessible until their rediscovery in 1908; he is known as the foremost writer of Noh and the artist who brought it to its classical epitome.