Yeats and Noh

Under the influence of the lyrical drama of Medieval Japan called "Noh (Nogaku)", William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) wrote ten short plays to be performed for small elite audiences. These plays constitute his "noble theatre". They fall into two generations. Six plays belong to the first generation: At the Hawk's Well (1917), The only Jealousy of Emer (1919), The Dreaming of the Bones (1919), Calvary (1920), The Cat and the Moon (1926), a farce, and Resurrection (1931). The second generation comprises four plays: A Full Moon in March (1935), The King of the Great Clock Tower (1935), Purgatory (1939), and The Death of Cuchulain (1939).