1. Chikamatsu Monzaemon was a Japanese dramatist of joruri, the form of puppet theater that later came to be known as bunraku, and the live-actor drama, kabuki.
11 Facts About Chikamatsu Monzaemon
1. 2.
Chikamatsu Monzaemon's histories are viewed less positively, though The Battles of Coxinga remains praised.
3.
Chikamatsu's younger brother became a medical doctor, and Chikamatsu himself wrote a book on health care.
4.
At some point in his teens, between 1664 and 1670, Chikamatsu Monzaemon moved to imperial capital Kyoto with his father where 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 Monzaemon's life.
5.
Chikamatsu Monzaemon published his first known literary work in this period, a haiku that appeared in 1671.
6.
Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote plays for the kabuki theatre between 1684 and 1695, most of which were intended to be performed by a famous actor of the day, Sakata Tojuro.
7.
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 Monzaemon did not feel kabuki worth writing for since Tojuro was about to retire, or perhaps the growing popularity of the puppet theater was economically irresistible.
8.
In 1705, Chikamatsu Monzaemon became a "Staff Playwright" as announced by early editions of The Mirror of Craftsmen of the Emperor Yomei.
9.
In 1705 or 1706, Chikamatsu Monzaemon left Kyoto for Osaka, where the puppet theater was even more popular.
10.
Chikamatsu Monzaemon's popularity peaked with his domestic plays of love-suicides, and with the blockbuster success of The Battles of Coxinga in 1715, but thereafter the tastes of patrons turned to more sensational gore fests and otherwise more crude antics; Chikamatsu Monzaemon's plays would fall into disuse, so even the actual music would be lost for many plays.
11.
Rei Sasaguchi listed the same play as one of Chikamatsu Monzaemon's most striking bunraku works along with The Couriers of Love to the Other World.