Paper short abstract:

Namiki Sōsuke (1695-1751) was a major creative force behind the vibrant ningyō-jōruri theatre of eighteenth-century Osaka, his works including the masterpiece Kanadehon Chūshingura (1748). I shall here suggest how his rediscovered poems can enrich our appreciation of his dramatic oeuvre.

Paper long abstract:

The playwright Namiki Sōsuke (also Namiki Senryū, 1695-1751) was the principal author of some forty works for the Osaka ningyō-jōruri puppet theatre and the main creative force behind the masterpieces of the 'Golden Age' of this genre in the 1740s. Plays such as Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy (1746), Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees (1747) and The Treasury of Loyal Retainers (Kanadehon Chūshingura, 1748) enjoy an enduring popularity on the modern bunraku and kabuki stages. These works were written by a team of authors, but it is now generally accepted that Sōsuke was the principal director of these artistic projects. However, the true extent of his contribution to Japanese theatre remained obscure until relatively recently.

The rediscovery of this playwright in the post-war period owes much to two twentieth-century findings. The first was the recognition of a 'longevity stele' that Sōsuke erected during his lifetime. As well as confirming several biographical details, this monument contains Sōsuke's 'death poem' (jisei), which refers to the author's escaping a 'burning house' at the age of nineteen. Is this a conventional allusion, inspired by a parable in the Lotus Sutra, to a Buddhist spiritual awakening? Or does the verse recall a particular traumatic event in his youth?

The second rediscovery consists of three early poems, written in an accomplished Chinese style during his time as a Zen monk. Probably composed on the occasion of a journey to the west of Honshū and the island of Kyūshū, they describe his encounter with a powerful earthquake on the road, as well as his visit to Dan-no-Ura, site of the final defeat of the Heike clan. The subjects that Sōsuke evokes here — the helplessness of the individual in the face of greater forces, the overlapping of present reality and past events, the principle of impermanence manifested in the extinction of the Heike — foreshadow themes that will pervade Sōsuke's entire dramatic oeuvre.

I shall here suggest how these rediscovered poems can enrich our appreciation of Sōsuke's works, opening fresh perspectives for the interpretation of this important part of the Japanese dramatic repertoire.