Áldozni az emlékezetnek. Az Ohara gokō 大原御幸 című nó-drámáról
A Sacrifice to Memory. About the Nō Play Ohara gokō 大原御幸

Summary/Abstract: In my study I analyse the nō play Ohara gokō and the role memory and remembrance play in it. I briefly summarise how the source material, the Heike monogatari was adapted for the nō stage and emphasise why Kenreimon’in 建礼門院 (Taira no Tokuko平徳子, 1155–1214), the famed last survivor of the Heike clan and mother of the child emperor Antoku, is an ideal main character for such a theatre adaptation. After her unsuccessful suicide attempt at the Battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185, Kenreimon’in dedicates her life to praying for her lost family members as a nun in Ōhara. Taking her confession to the Retired Emperor Goshirakawa as a kind of fictional oral history, I posit that the nō play is a ritual of sacrifice and remembrance that is celebrated together with the audience. Through its poetic imagery of flora as a metaphor for ever-encroaching, living memory that is both beautiful and dangerous, Ohara gokō keeps Kenreimon’in alive; her life and her story thus becoming a sacrifice to memory itself.

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