Chikamatsu Monzaemon (redirected from Chikamatsu)

Chikamatsu Monzaemon

 orig. Sugimori Nobumori

(born 1653, Echizen, Japan—died Jan. 6, 1725, Osaka) Japanese playwright. Born into a samurai family, he was attached to the court aristocracy at Kyoto before moving to Osaka to be near its puppet theatre. He is credited with more than 100 plays, mainly historical romances and domestic tragedies, many based on actual incidents. Most were written for the bunraku, which he raised to artistic heights. His most popular work was The Battles of Coxinga (1715), a historical melodrama based on the life of Zheng Chenggong. Also famous is Double Suicide at Amijima (1720). He is widely regarded as the greatest of Japanese dramatists.

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Chikamatsu Monzaemon 

(pen name of Sugimori Nobumori). Born 1653; died Nov. 22,1724. Japanese playwright.

Chikamatsu wrote joruri plays for the puppet theater and Ka-buki dramas. Beginning in 1705 he wrote only joruri. He was the author of many historical tragedies on themes drawn from feudal epics and chronicles. In these works there is a clash between feelings and duty, with duty always triumphant; examples are Kagekiyo Victorious (1686) and Kokusenya Kassen (The Battles of Coxinga, 1715). He also wrote dramas set in an urban milieu about the unhappy fate of those in love, including Sonezaki Shinju (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki, 1703) and The Courier for Hell (1711). Chikamatsu was the first Japanese author of psychological dramas. Many of his plays are still performed in the Kabuki theater and the Japanese puppet theater.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Dramy. Moscow, 1963.
Dramaticheskie poemy. [Moscow, 1968.]

REFERENCES

Konrad, N. I. “Iaponskii teatr.” In the collection Vostochnyi teatr. Leningrad, 1929.
Konrad, N. I. Ocherki iaponskoi literatury. Moscow, 1973.
Grigor’eva, T., and V. Logunova. Iaponskaia literatura. Moscow, 1964.
Markova, V. “Mondzaemon Tikamatsu o teatral’nom iskusstve.” In the collection Teatr i dramaturgiia Iaponii. Moscow, 1965.

N. G. IVANENKO