Chikamatsu Monzaemon

1653 – 6 January 1725

Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) was a Japanese dramatist of the Edo period, often called the greatest playwright of Japan and sometimes compared to Shakespeare. He wrote more than one hundred plays for the jōruri puppet theatre (later bunraku) and kabuki, pioneering the domestic tragedy of love suicides alongside grand historical dramas such as The Battles of Coxinga.

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Life events

Born into a samurai family in Echizen Province
1653

Chikamatsu was born Sugimori Nobumori into a samurai family; his father later became a rōnin, and the family moved to Kyoto.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Birth ✓
Moved with his family to Kyoto
c. 1666

As a teenager Chikamatsu relocated to Kyoto, where he served in aristocratic households and absorbed courtly and literary culture.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Relocation ✓
Began writing plays for the jōruri puppet theatre
1683

Chikamatsu's earliest attributed plays date from the early 1680s, including The Soga Successors written for the chanter Uji Kaganojō.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Began his collaboration with the chanter Takemoto Gidayū
1685

Chikamatsu started writing for Takemoto Gidayū, whose Takemoto-za theatre in Osaka staged many of his greatest puppet plays.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Wrote kabuki plays for the actor Sakata Tōjūrō I
c. 1693 – c. 1703

During the 1690s and early 1700s Chikamatsu wrote extensively for the kabuki stage in Kyoto, particularly vehicles for the star actor Sakata Tōjūrō.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Premiere of The Love Suicides at Sonezaki
1703

Sonezaki Shinjū, based on a real double suicide, created the genre of domestic love-suicide tragedy and was an enormous popular success.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Settled in Osaka as staff playwright of the Takemoto-za
c. 1705

Chikamatsu moved from Kyoto to Osaka to devote himself to writing puppet plays for the Takemoto-za theatre.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Relocation ✓
Premiere of The Battles of Coxinga
1715

Kokusen'ya Kassen, a spectacular history play about the half-Japanese Ming loyalist Coxinga, ran for some seventeen months and became his greatest commercial success.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Premiere of The Love Suicides at Amijima
1721

Shinjū Ten no Amijima, regarded by many critics as his masterpiece of domestic tragedy, was first staged at the Takemoto-za.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Died in Osaka at about age 72
6 January 1725

Chikamatsu died in Osaka, having written over one hundred jōruri plays and around thirty kabuki plays.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Death ✓