SOURCE: “Sources and Influences of Chikamatsu's Play,” and “Literary Analysis of ‘The Battles of Coxinga,’” in The Battles of Coxinga: Chikamatsu's Puppet Play, Its Background and Importance, Taylor's Foreign Press, 1951, pp. 76-99.

In this excerpt from his study and translation of Chikamatsu's The Battles of Coxinga, Keene discusses both the sources of that play and the later texts that used Chikamatsu as a source. In his analysis of the play, Keene emphasizes the importance of the joruri (puppet play) genre to literary interpretation, arguing that Chikamatsu himself was highly aware of the limitations and capabilities of the puppet theater. This essay originally contained ideographic characters, which have been silently removed for this reprinting.

Sources and Influences of Chikamatsu's Play

(a) Sources

The slight relationship which Chikamatsu's play [The Battles of Coxinga] bears to historical fact may be inferred from the previous chapter. However, it is not a pure...