Chikamatsu Monzaemon

Chikamatsu Monzaemon(近松 門左衛門, real nameSugimori Nobumori, 杉森 信盛, 1653 – 6 January 1725)was aJapanesedramatistofjōruri, the form of puppet theater that later came to be known asbunraku, and the live-actor drama,kabuki. TheEncyclopædia Britannicahas written that he is "widely regarded as the greatest Japanese dramatist".His most famous plays deal with double-suicides of honor bound lovers. Of his puppet plays, around 70 arejidaimono(時代物) (historical romances) and 24 aresewamono(世話物) (domestic tragedies). The domestic plays are today considered the core of his artistic achievement, particularly works such asThe Courier for Hell(1711) andThe Love Suicides at Amijima(1721). His histories are viewed less positively, thoughThe Battles of Coxinga(1715) remains praised.
Chikamatsu was born Sugimori Nobumorito asamuraifamily. There is disagreement about his birthplace. The most popular theorysuggests he was born inEchizen Province, but there are other plausible locations, includingHagi,Nagato Province.  His father, Sugimori Nobuyoshi, served thedaimyōMatsudairain Echizen as a medical doctor. Chikamatsu's younger brother became a medical doctor, and Chikamatsu himself wrote a book on health care.
In those days, doctors who served thedaimyōsheld samurai status. But Chikamatsu's father lost his office and became arōnin, a masterless samurai. At some point in his teens, between 1664 and 1670, Chikamatsu moved to imperial capital Kyoto with his fatherwhere he served for a few years as an obscure page for a civil noble family, but other than that, little is known about this period of Chikamatsu's life. He published his first known literary work in this period, ahaikuthat appeared in 1671.After serving as a page, he next appears in records of theGonshō-ji(近松寺) temple (long suggested as the origin of his pen name "Chikamatsu", which iskun readingof 近松) inŌmi Province, in present-dayShiga Prefecture.
With the production in 1683 of his puppet play in Kyoto about the Soga brothers (The Soga Successorsor "The Soga Heir";Yotsugi Soga), Chikamatsu became known as a playwright.The Soga Successorsis believed to have been Chikamatsu's first play although sometimes 15 earlier anonymous plays are contended to have been by Chikamatsu as well. Chikamatsu also wrote plays for thekabukitheatre between 1684 and 1695, most of which were intended to be performed by a famous actor of the day,Sakata Tōjūrō(1647–1709).After 1695, and until 1705, Chikamatsu wrote almost exclusively Kabuki plays, and then he abruptly almost completely abandoned that genre. The exact reason is unknown, although speculation is rife: perhaps the puppets were more biddable and controllable than the ambitious kabuki actors, or perhaps Chikamatsu did not feel kabuki worth writing for since Tōjūrō was about to retire, or perhaps the growing popularity of the puppet theater was economically irresistible.C. Andrew Gerstleargues that Chikamatsu's collaborations with various performers affected his development as a playwright. His collaborations with kabuki practitioners led to more realistic characters, while his later collaboration with Takeda Izumo led to a heightened theatricality.
In 1705, Chikamatsu became a "Staff Playwright" as announced by early editions ofThe Mirror of Craftsmen of the Emperor Yōmei. In 1705 or 1706,Chikamatsu left Kyoto for Osaka, where the puppet theater was even more popular.Chikamatsu's popularity peaked with his domestic plays of love-suicides, and with the blockbuster success ofThe Battles of Coxingain 1715, but thereafter the tastes of patrons turned to more sensational gore fests and otherwise more crude antics; Chikamatsu's plays would fall into disuse, so even the actual music would be lost for many plays. He died January 6, 1725, in eitherAmagasakiinHyōgo,orOsaka.
In 1706, he wrote a three-act puppet play entitledGoban Taiheiki("A chronicle of great peace played on a chessboard"), based on the story of theForty-seven rōnin; this became the basis of the later and much better-knownChūshingura.
Currently, 130 plays have been verified to have been authored by Chikamatsu, with another 15 plays (mostly early Kabuki works) suspected to also have been penned by him.
Chikamatsu'sbunraku(jōruri) pieces, of which 24 aresewamono(domestic plays),came to be regarded as high literature in theMeijiandTaishō eras.Many have argued that his genius was "his masterful depiction of the passions, obsessions, and irrationality of the human heart." While Chikamatsu'sjidaimono(history plays) were considered more important in his own time, the domestic tragedies are now "the main focus of critical attention and the more frequently performed",praised as deeply drawn in their portrayals of commoners.The Love Suicides at Sonezaki(1703), one of the earliest domestic plays in puppet theater, was a hit that revived the fortunes of the Takemoto Theater in Osaka.While it is not considered as strong as his later playThe Love Suicides at Amijima(1721),Donald Keenepraised the death passage as "one of the loveliest passages in Japanese literature".Also, it was written inEarly Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900thatThe Drum of the Waves of Horikawa(1707) is "of considerable interest for its exploration of female sexuality and its implicit critique of the life of lower-level samurai".Rei Sasaguchi listed the same play as one of Chikamatsu's most strikingbunrakuworks along withThe Couriers of Love to the Other World.
The Love Suicides at Amijimais generally regarded as the greatest of his domestic plays,thoughThe Courier for Hell(1711),The Uprooted Pine(1718), andThe Woman-Killer and the Hell of Oil(1721) have also been praised as works "of exceptional power".The last of the three initially was not well-received, and acquired a high reputation only in the late 19th century.Robert Nichols wrote thatThe Almanac of Love(1715) is highly regarded.Kenneth P. Kirkwood argued that the work is somewhat thin in texture but "nevertheless reveals the playwright's skill in making a dramatic plot out of the slightest materials."In a review of Gerstle'sChikamatsu: Five Late Plays, Katherine Saltzman-Li praised the "depth of character" achieved inTwins at the Sumida River(1720) through the various allusions.
The histories are mostly considered weaker, with Nichols writing that character in them tends to be subordinated to plot.The Battles of Coxinga(1715), however, ran for seventeen months and became the classical model for later history plays. It remains in the repertoires of both thebunrakuandkabukitraditions,and Donald Keene referred to it as the onlyjidaimono"with real literary value".Keisei hotoke no hara(1699) andKeisei mibu dainembutsu(1702) are among the most renowned kabuki plays,though Keene argued that even they are "inferior in every respect" to thejōruriworks written around the same period. Nichols listedThe Courtesan's Frankincense,The Tethered Steed, andFair Ladies at a Game of Poem-Cardsas the best histories.Anne Walthall atUC Irvinesaid that the "vivid portrayal of interpersonal relations and individual personality [inLove Suicides on the Eve of the Kōshin Festival] provides excellent evidence why Chikamatsu's domestic plays have become more popular than his historical dramas.""Devil's Island", the second scene of the second act ofHeike and the Island of Women(1719), became part of the kabuki repertory in the 19th century and today is usually performed in jōruri and kabuki as a single play.