Bunraku in early eighteenth century Japan was a uniquely popular
type of theatre in that it was the only period in known history when the
popularity of puppets eclipsed that of live human actors. The rise in
popularity was due to Bunraku being marketed to the lower classes of farmers,
merchants, and artisans, who responded to its financial and emotional accessibility.
Specifically, Chikamatsu’s Love Suicide plays, part of a new genre of domestic plays, dealt
with the lives of ordinary people and idealized the solutions to common
problems that they faced.
I think you can take this a couple more steps. What's the very important thing that you think we should realize after we recognize that Chikamatsu's Love Suicides idealized death? Ultimately, did Bunraku help to distract the masses from their tedious lives? Was it propaganda? Compared with Noh and Kabuki, what must we realize about Bunraku's function in Japanese society?
ReplyDeleteThose are the big questions, answers to which will push your thesis farther. Additionally, there's a grammatical issue with the first sentence. Notice that you start the sentence with "Bunraku," as though it was going to be the subject of the sentence, but then you switch the subject to "early eighteenth century Japan" by the second half of the sentence.
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