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Article: The plays are the thing: the people of the idyllic harbor town Nagato in Yamaguchi-ken are proudly preserving the legacy of the great playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon, who may or may not have been bore in the town exactly 350 years ago.(Cultural Creators)
- Article from:
- Look Japan
- Article date:
- March 1, 2003
- Author:
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WILLIAM Shakespeare (1564-1616) is known to all as the English playwright who authored such masterpieces as Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. In Japan, we have our own playwright who is often called the "Shakespeare of the East": Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), who was active during the middle years of the Edo period (1603-1867).
Born less than 40 years after Shakespeare died, Chikamatsu authored more than 130 plays for the kabuki and ningyou joruri (now commonly called bunraku puppet theater) stages that are extant today. These works range from historical plays (jidaimono) focusing on members of the nobility and warrior class, to contemporary plays (sewamono) that ...