Page:Tales from old Japanese dramas (1915).djvu/57

Rh the middle of the eighteenth century we hear of definite authors whose works were called kyaku-hon. These are in form nearly the same as the European drama. With the exception of two or three writers, such as Namiki Gohei (1760–1822), the author of the Kimmon Gosan no Kiri, Tsuruya Namboku (1755–1829), the author of the O-Somé Hisamatsu Ukina no Yomi-uri, and the Yotsuya Kwaidan, and Furukawa Moku-ami (1715–1893), the author of the Murai Chōan Takumi no Yaregasa, the kyaku-hon writers were second or third rate authors. Their works are of little literary value and cannot be compared with the epical dramas by Monzayemon and other writers. The reason is as follows. In the kabuki theatre, the actors were everything and the playwrights were their slaves, so to speak, and had to suit their writings to the actors' demands. Therefore able authors of an independent spirit would not write for them. But by the middle of the eighteenth century, the kabuki theatres had made remarkable improvements and begun to perform the most popular of the epical dramas. Thus they soon became more popular in Ōsaka than the marionette theatres, and in Yedo, at the