Chikamatsu Monzaemon

Chikamatsu Monzaemon, born Sugimori Nobumori, lived from 1653 to January 6, 1725, in Japan's Edo period and is widely regarded as the greatest Japanese dramatist. He pioneered work in two major theatrical forms, writing roughly seventy historical plays and twenty-four domestic tragedies for joruri puppet theatre and numerous stage plays for kabuki, primarily between 1684 and 1705. His most celebrated works explore honor-bound lovers and double suicides, including The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (1703), The Battles of Coxinga (1715), his most successful historical drama, and The Love Suicides at Amijima (1721), considered his greatest domestic play; he left behind 130 verified plays plus 15 suspected works, and modern scholars regard his domestic tragedies, with their depiction of the passions and irrationality of the human heart, as his artistic pinnacle.