@inproceedings{oai:kokubunken.repo.nii.ac.jp:00002259,
 author = {Gerstle, Andrew \nガーストル アンドリュー and GERSTLE, Andrew},
 book = {国際日本文学研究集会会議録, PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON JAPANESE LITERATURE},
 issue = {19},
 month = {Oct},
 note = {pdf, Chikamatsu Monzaemon's (1653-1725) career from the early 1680s until his final work written in 1724 covers one of the culturally richest 40 years in Japan's history. He witnessed the flourishing of haikai under Basho, ukiyozoshi under Saikaku ; the political eras of Tsunayoshi, Arai Hakuseki, and Yoshimune; as well as the philosophical dynamism of Ito Jinsai and Ogyu Sorai. Writing an average of more than two plays a year over this time, he was integral to the development of both Kyoto Kabuki and Osaka Joruri. Born into a samurai family, he served in a courtier house as a youth and then worked in the theatrical worlds of both Kyoto and Osaka writing for commoner audiences. His experience and perspective were unusually varied.
Chikamatsu inherited a Joruri tradition in which good vs. bad characters were relatively rigidly set in black and white terms. In his mature works both jidaimono and sewamono, he nevertheless explores sympathetically the nature of ‘fallen' characters, their human weakness which leads to crime. Those who face crises are almost always characters who are marginal to the the public sphere. These outsiders tend to be orphans, disgraced samurai or retired. if they are male; women by definition are outside the public forum in Edo Japan, whether samurai or merchant, but though ‘weak' in terms of public status, they usually prove to have strong resolve when faced with crisis. Chikamatsu's women characters tend to be strong individuals decisive in contrast to men. I have argued ('Hero as Murderer in the Plays of Chikamatsu', Monumenta Nipponica vol.51, No.3, 1996) that from about 1711 Chikamatsu pursued the theme of male weakness and the nature of crime and individual responsibility from different angles in both sewamono and jidaimono plays. He takes this theme to its furthest extremes in a series of three murder plays late in his career. Futago Sumidagawa (8/1720). Tsu no kuni meoto ike (2/1721) and Onna-koroshi abura no jigoku (7 /1721). After this extreme of creating his ‘heroes as murderers', he shifts his gaze away, I believe, from ‘weak' men to strong individuals particularly high ranking samurai in order to question the nature of morality, leadership and individual integrity. In this paper I shall focus on Chikamatsu's late plays, particularly Shinshu kawa naka-jima kassen (8/1721), Urashima nendaiki (3/1722), Shinju yoigoshin (4/1722) and especially his final work Kanhasshu tsunagi-uma(1/1724) to analyse Chikamatsu's construction of his heroes strong and complex individuals.
Chikamatsu in his later works, time and again, names two important attributes of a true leader (whether merchant, samurai or emperor): nasake (compassion) and an understanding of jo (passion) in the human condition. Chikamatsu was clearly influenced by the thought of Jinsai, who stressed that these qualities are necessary for those who wield power over others. His noble leaders, such as Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin in Shinshu kawa-nakajima kassen and the Shogun Yorimitsu in Kanhasshu tsunagi-uma are endowed with such compassion and wisdom. Uchiyama Mikiko in her book Jorurishi no juhasseki and article on Kanhasshu (Kabuki : kenkyu to hihyo, vol.8, 1992) has made a convincing case for viewing Chikamatsu and other Joruri playwrights such as Namiki Sosuke as being acutely sensitive to political change and intellectual currents. Chikamatsu without doubt welcomed the reforms of Hakuseki after the excesses of Tsunayoshi and it is also clear that Chikamatsu was stimulated by Yoshimune's Kyoho Reforms to question legal concepts and the role of samurai in government, and the distinction between public and private for both the government and the individual (perhaps stimulated by Ogyu Sorai). Uchiyama argues that Chikamatsu sets up a contrast between kuge no ho (court law) and Edo period bushi no ho (samurai law) to question the Bakufu system. It would seem reasonable to argue that it is partly due to Chikamatsu's Kamigata perspective which allows him to see outside official or orthodox Edo views of law and morality. His technique is to use outsiders (orphans, disgraced or retired men, and women, particularly widows) to question the tenets of the system. Chikamatsu explores this theme in several plays late in his career but it is in his final work, and in the portrayal of Minamoto no Yorihira (Yorimitsu's younger brother), that he produces his most sophisticated and complex drama questioning the nature of public and private morality. For, in this drama Chikamatsu takes the step of making a truly noble, responsible and strong man the focus of the climactic act three. It is his uncompromising, individual integrity that confronts the system. (A key word in this play is watakushi.,’private', in contrast to oyake,’public', in line with Sorai's usuage.) Yorihira has ‘fallen' from the highest echelons of power and been disgraced because of love for a woman, and even become an enemy of the court, but because he is Yorimitsu's talented and strong younger brother, possibly in line to become Shogun, he is the highest ranking and most public figure to take the lead role in a history play. Chikamatsu, like Kyoto's Ito Jinsai and the Osaka's Kaitokudo tradition, has a perspective both within and without the Edo system. In his last work he achieves a complexity both within and without the Edo system. In his last work he achieves a complexity of individual consciousness rarely seen in Japan before the twentieth century. I shall try to get a revealing perspective on this achievement and its significance by placing Yorihira within a larger chain of development and within the philosophical and political trends of the first quarter of the eighteenth century.},
 pages = {183--205},
 publisher = {国文学研究資料館},
 title = {公開講演　享保期の近松浄瑠璃　―弱き英雄から強き武士へ―},
 year = {1996},
 yomi = {ガーストル, アンドリュー}
}