- Original name:
- Sugimori Nobumori
- Born:
- 1653, Echizen [now in Fukui prefecture], Japan
- Died:
- Jan. 6, 1725, Amagasaki, Settsu province? (aged 72)
Chikamatsu Monzaemon
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Who was Chikamatsu Monzaemon?
Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) is regarded as one of Japan's greatest dramatists. Credited with over 100 plays, he wrote mostly jōruri dramas for puppets, and was the first jōruri author to focus on literary merit in addition to the puppet operators' skills.
His works fall into two categories: jidaimono (historical romances) and sewamono (domestic tragedies). Modern critics favor the domestic tragedies for their realism, but the historical romances are more exciting as puppet plays. His most popular work was Kokusenya kassen (1715; The Battles of Coxinga). His celebrated work, Shinjū ten no Amijima (1720; Double Suicide at Amijima), is still frequently performed. Puppet theatre reached its height in the 18th century with the plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon.
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What kind of plays did Chikamatsu Monzaemon write?
Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote over 100 plays, with most of them being jōruri dramas for puppets. His works fall into two categories: jidaimono (historical romances) and sewamono (domestic tragedies). Modern critics favor his domestic tragedies for their realism, while his historical romances are known to be more exciting as puppet plays.
His domestic tragedies featured people living in Osaka, such as merchants, housewives, servants, criminals, and prostitutes, and were based on actual incidents of the time, like double suicides of lovers. The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (1703) is one of his first domestic tragedy plays.
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For which types of traditional Japanese theater did Chikamatsu Monzaemon write?
Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote for both Kabuki and jōruri (puppet theater, later known as Bunraku). By 1693, he wrote exclusively for Kabuki actors but reestablished his connection with jōruri in 1703.
His work includes both jidaimono (historical romances) and sewamono (domestic tragedies), with modern critics often preferring the latter for their realism.
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What are common themes in Chikamatsu Monzaemon's works?
Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote over 100 plays, which fall into two primary classifications: jidaimono (historical romances) and sewamono (domestic tragedies). His domestic tragedies are based on the lives of average people in Osaka, such as merchants, servants, housewives, criminals, and prostitutes and are often based on actual incidents of double-suicides of lovers.
A common theme in many of his plays is the conflict between social obligations and personal desires, particularly in his love-suicide dramas, which were based on real events within the brothel system. These dramas became so popular that they were outlawed.
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Why is Chikamatsu Monzaemon sometimes called the 'Shakespeare of Japan'?
Chikamatsu Monzaemon, born in 1653, is often called the "Shakespeare of Japan" because he is widely considered to be among the greatest dramatists of Japan. Like Shakespeare, Monzaemon wrote for the theater, and his work gave considerable literary merit to Japanese puppet dramas known as jōruri.
Monzaemon's plays fall into two categories: jidaimono (historical romances) and sewamono (domestic tragedies). Modern critics often favor the domestic tragedies for being more realistic.
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How did Chikamatsu Monzaemon influence Japanese theater and culture?
Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1725) significantly shaped Japanese theater and culture through his work as a playwright for both kabuki and jōruri (puppet theater). Credited with over 100 plays, Chikamatsu's dramas gave puppet operators opportunities to display their skills while attaining literary merit.
His works fall into two categories: jidaimono (historical romances) and sewamono (domestic tragedies). Modern critics favor his domestic tragedies for their realism, which explore the lives of everyday people in Osaka, often based on actual incidents like double suicides. Chikamatsu brought contemporary dramatic subject matter from kabuki into his puppet plays. His influence extends to modern adaptations of his plays in kabuki theater, film, and other media.
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Chikamatsu Monzaemon (born 1653, Echizen [now in Fukui prefecture], Japan—died Jan. 6, 1725, Amagasaki, Settsu province?) was a Japanese playwright, widely regarded as among the greatest dramatists of that country. He is credited with more than 100 plays, most of which were written as jōruri dramas, performed by puppets. He was the first author of jōruri to write works that not only gave the puppet operator the opportunity to display his skill but also were of considerable literary merit.
Chikamatsu was born into a samurai family, but his father apparently abandoned his feudal duties sometime between 1664 and 1670, moving the family to Kyōto. While there, Chikamatsu served a member of the court aristocracy. The origin of his connection to the theatre is unknown. Yotsugi Soga (1683; “The Soga Heir”), a jōruri, is the first play that can be definitely attributed to Chikamatsu. The following year he wrote a Kabuki play, and by 1693 he was writing exclusively for actors. In 1703 he reestablished an earlier connection with the jōruri chanter Takemoto Gidayū, and he moved in 1705 from Kyōto to Ōsaka to be nearer to Gidayū’s puppet theatre, the Takemoto-za. Chikamatsu remained a staff playwright for this theatre until his death.
Chikamatsu’s works fall into two main categories: jidaimono (historical romances) and sewamono (domestic tragedies). Modern critics generally prefer the latter plays because they are more realistic and closer to European conceptions of drama, but the historical romances are more exciting as puppet plays. Some of Chikamatsu’s views on the art of the puppet theatre have been preserved in Naniwa miyage, a work written by a friend in 1738. There Chikamatsu is reported to have said, “Art is something that lies in the slender margin between the real and the unreal,” and in his own works he endeavoured accordingly to steer between the fantasy that had been the rule in the puppet theatre and the realism that was coming into vogue.
The characters who populate Chikamatsu’s domestic tragedies are merchants, housewives, servants, criminals, prostitutes, and all the other varieties of people who lived in the Ōsaka of his day. Most of his domestic tragedies were based on actual incidents, such as double suicides of lovers. Sonezaki shinjū (1703; The Love Suicides at Sonezaki), for example, was written within a fortnight of the actual double suicide on which it is based. The haste of composition is not at all apparent even in this first example of Chikamatsu’s double-suicide plays, the archetype of his other domestic tragedies.
Chikamatsu’s most popular work was Kokusenya kassen (1715; The Battles of Coxinga), a historical melodrama based loosely on events in the life of the Chinese-Japanese adventurer who attempted to restore the Ming dynasty in China. Another celebrated work is Shinjū ten no Amijima (1720; Double Suicide at Amijima), still frequently performed. Despite Chikamatsu’s eminence, however, the decline in popularity of puppet plays has resulted in most members of the theatregoing public being unfamiliar with his work, except in the abridgments and considerably revised versions used in Kabuki theatre, on film, and elsewhere. Eleven of his best-known plays appear in Major Plays of Chikamatsu (1961, reissued 1990), translated by Donald Keene. Mainly historical plays are in Chikamatsu: Five Late Plays (2001), translated by C. Andrew Gerstle.