SOURCE: “Circles of Felicity,” in Circles of Fantasy: Convention in the Plays of Chikamatsu, Harvard Council of East Asian Studies, 1986, pp. 155-79.

In this excerpt, Gerstle discusses two of Chikamatsu's later works, Yosaku from Tamba and The uprooted pine. Gerstle considers the plays as unique examples of the Kabuki and sewamono genres, focusing on the somewhat problematic “happy” endings and the details of the plays' performances. This essay originally contained ideographic characters, which have been silently removed for this reprinting.

Illusion for romance … is an order of existence that is best called alienation. Most romances end happily, with a return to the state of identity, and begin with a departure from it. Even in the most realistic stories there is usually some trace of a plunge downward at the beginning and a bounce upward at the end. This means that most romances exhibit a cyclical movement of descent...