Chikamatsu Monzaemon: The Tenderness and Severity of Japan’s Master Dramatist

Text from The Courtesan of the Hangon Incense written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon himself, which was donated to the city of Amagasaki in Hyōgo Prefecture. (© Kyōdō Images)

A jōruri book for Lovers Pond in Settsu Province. (Courtesy of the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Arts and Sciences)

A portrait of Chikamatsu Monzaemon in Naniwa miyage (preface by Hozumi Ikan trans. by Michael Brownstein as Souvenirs of Naniwa). (Courtesy Osaka Metropolitan University Nakamozu Library)