Rakugo - Important Contributors

Important Contributors

Many artists contributed to the development of rakugo. Some were simply performers, but many also composed original works.

Among the more famous rakugoka of the Tokugawa Era were performers like Anrakuan Sakuden (1554–1642), the author of the Seisuishō (Laughter to Chase Away Sleep, 1628), a collection of more than 1,000 stories. In Edo (today's Tokyo) there also lived Shikano Buzaemon (1649–99) who wrote the Shikano Buzaemon kudenbanashi (Oral Instruction Discourses of Shikano Buzaemon) and the Shika no makifude (The Deer's Brush, 1686), a work containing 39 stories, eleven of which are about the kabuki milieu. Tatekawa Enba (1743–1822) was author of the Rakugo rokugi (The Six Meanings of Rakugo).

Kyōto was the home of Tsuyu no Gorobei (1643–1703), whose works are included in the Karakuchi tsuyu ga hanashi (One-liners: Morning Dew Stories, date of composition unknown), containing many word games, episodes from the lives of famous literary authors, and plays on the different dialects from the Tōkyō, Ōsaka, and Kyōto areas.

Of a similar structure is the Karakuchi gozen otoko (One-liners: An Important Storyteller, date of publication unknown) in which are collected the stories of Yonezawa Hikohachi, who lived in Ōsaka towards the end of the 17th century. An example from Yonezawa Hikohachi's collection:

A man faints in a bathing tub. In the great confusion following, a doctor arrives who takes his pulse and calmly gives the instructions: "Pull the plug and let the water out." Once the water has flowed completely out of the tub he says: "Fine. Now put a lid on it and carry the guy to the cemetery."

For the poor man is already dead. The joke becomes clearer when one notes that a Japanese traditional bathing tub is shaped like a coffin.