Chikamatsu Monzaemon
Encyclopedia
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
tist of jōruri
Joruri
can refer to:*Jōruri , a type of sung narrative with shamisen accompaniment, typically found in Bunraku, a traditional Japanese puppet theatre.*Jōruri , an opera by Japanese composer Miki Minoru.*Jōruri-ji , a Buddhist temple near Nara....
, the form of puppet theater that later came to be known as bunraku
Bunraku
, also known as Ningyō jōruri , is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theater, founded in Osaka in 1684.Three kinds of performers take part in a bunraku performance:* Ningyōtsukai or Ningyōzukai—puppeteers* Tayū—the chanters* Shamisen players...
, and the live-actor drama, kabuki
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
. Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
writes that he is "widely regarded as the greatest Japanese dramatist." His most notable plays deal with double-suicides of honor bound lovers.
Biography
Chikamatsu was born "Sugimori Nobumori" to a samuraiSamurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
family. There is disagreement about his birthplace. The most popular theory suggests he was born in Echizen province
Echizen Province
was an old province of Japan, which is today the northern part of Fukui Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Etchū and Echigo Provinces.Echizen is famous for washi . A text dated AD 774 mentions the washi made in this area. Echizen-produced Washi is still the most commonly sold traditional...
, but there are other plausible locations, including Hagi
Hagi
Hagi may refer to:* Japanese bush clover or Lespedeza* Hagi, Yamaguchi, a city in Japan** Hagi ware, a type of pottery originating in Hagi* Gheorghe Hagi, a Romanian football player...
, Nagato province
Nagato Province
, often called , was a province of Japan. It was at the extreme western end of Honshū, in the area that is today Yamaguchi Prefecture. Nagato bordered on Iwami and Suō Provinces....
. His father, Sugimori Nobuyoshi, served the daimyo
Daimyo
is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...
Matsudaira in Echizen as a medical doctor. Chikamatsu's younger brother became a medical doctor, and Chikamatsu himself wrote a book on health care.
Ronin
A or rounin was a Bushi with no lord or master during the feudal period of Japan. A samurai became masterless from the death or fall of his master, or after the loss of his master's favor or privilege....
, or masterless samurai. At some point in his teens, between 1664 and 1670, Chikamatsu moved to Kyoto with his father where he served for a few years as an obscure page for a 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, a haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
that appeared in 1671. After serving as a page, he next appears in records of the Chikamatsu Temple (long suggested as the origin of his stage name "Chikamatsu") in Ōmi Province
Omi Province
is an old province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō circuit. It is nicknamed as .Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake, is located at the center of the province...
, in present-day Shiga Prefecture.
With the production in 1683 of his puppet play in Kyoto about the Soga brothers, (The Soga Successors or "The Soga Heir"; Yotsugi Soga) Chikamatsu became known as a playwright. The Soga Successors is 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 the kabuki
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
theatre between 1684 and 1695, most of which were intended to be performed by a famous actor of the day, Sakata Tōjūrō
Sakata Tojuro
' refers to a family of kabuki actors in Kyoto and Osaka and it is the stage name of a series of Kabuki actors over the course of the history of the form....
(b. 1647, d. 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.
In 1705, Chikamatsu became a "Staff Playwright" as announced by early editions of The 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 of The Battles of Coxinga
The Battles of Coxinga
' is a puppet play by Chikamatsu. It was his most popular play: first staged on November 26, 1715, in Osaka, it ran for the next seventeen months, far longer than the usual few weeks or months...
in 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 either Amagasaki, Hyogo
Amagasaki, Hyogo
is an industrial city located in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. The city was founded on April 1, 1916. Its population is around 460,000, below its peak of over 554,000 in 1971.-History:...
or Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
.
Chikamatsu was the first known Japanese playwright who did not act in the pieces he wrote. 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.
Japanese composer Mayako Kubo
Mayako Kubo
Mayako Kubo is a Japanese pianist and composer.-Life:Mayako Kubo was born in Kobe, Japan, and studied piano at Osaka College of Music. In 1972 she continued her studies in composition with Roman Haubenstock-Ramati and Erich Urbanner in Vienna, where she composed her first pieces of tape music at...
wrote an opera based on Chikamatsu's play Osan - Secret of Love. It was premiered at the New National Theatre Tokyo in 2005.
Major works
Jōruri
- The Soga Successors or "The Soga Heir" (Yotsugi Soga) (1683)
- Kagekiyo Victorious (Shusse kagekiyo 出世景清) (1685)
- The Love Suicides at SonezakiThe Love Suicides at SonezakiThe Love Suicides at Sonezaki is a love-suicide play by Chikamatsu. While not his first one nor his most popular , it is probably the most popular of his "domestic tragedies" or "domestic plays" as Donald Keene characterizes the...
(Sonezaki no shinjū 曾根崎心中) (1703) - The Night Song of Yosaku from Tamba (Tamba Yosaku machiyo no komurobushi 丹波与作待夜のこむろぶし)
- The Courier for HellThe Courier for HellThe Courier for Hell or Courier of Hell is a love-suicide play by Chikamatsu written in 1711. It follows a similar storyline to some of his other love-suicide plays, including The Love Suicides at Sonezaki and The Love Suicides at Amijima...
(Meido no hikyaku 冥途の飛脚) (1711) - The Battles of CoxingaThe Battles of Coxinga' is a puppet play by Chikamatsu. It was his most popular play: first staged on November 26, 1715, in Osaka, it ran for the next seventeen months, far longer than the usual few weeks or months...
(Kokusen'ya kassen 国姓爺合戦) (1715) - The Uprooted PineThe Uprooted PineThe Uprooted Pine is a play by Chikamatsu. It is a sewamono play like The Love Suicides at Sonezaki, written for the puppet theater...
(Nebiki no Kadomatsu) (1718) - The Love Suicides at AmijimaThe Love Suicides at AmijimaThe Love Suicides at Amijima is a domestic play by Japanese playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Originally written for the jōruri puppet theatre, it was adapted into kabuki shortly after its premiere. The play is one of Chikamatsu's more famous plays.It was first performed 3 January 1721...
(Shinjūten no Amijima 心中天網島) (1720) - The Woman-Killer and the Hell of Oil (Onnagoroshi abura no jigoku 女殺油地獄) (1721)
Kabuki
- The Courtesan on Buddha Plainhttp://muse.jhu.edu/journals/asian_theatre_journal/v017/17.1kominz.html (Keisei hotoke no hara けいせい仏の原) (1699)
Critical work
- Naniwa miyage (1738; written by a friend & preserves a number of statements by Chikamatsu on the art of the puppet theater)
Quotes
- "Art is something that lies in the slender margin between the real and the unreal." -Naniwa miyage
Further reading
- Chikamatsu: Five Late Plays, translated by C. Andrew Gerstle. 2001.
- Circles of Fantasy: Convention in the Plays of Chikamatsu by C. Andrew Gerstle. 1986. -(a critical study of Chikamatsu's plays)