bunraku

I am looking for any information about jidaimono and sewamono in bunraku, especially characteristics, structure, specialities and grasmatical devices like kakekotoba, engo and michiyuki.Especially in Chikamatsu's plays and especially his play Sonezaki shinju(The love suicides in Sonezaki).Iam looking forward of any information. thank you!
Pika

pika said:

I am looking for any information about jidaimono and sewamono in bunraku, especially characteristics, structure, specialities and grasmatical devices like kakekotoba, engo and michiyuki.Especially in Chikamatsu's plays and especially his play Sonezaki shinju(The love suicides in Sonezaki).Iam looking forward of any information. thank you!
Pika

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Nobody other than expert could answer about Bunraku, Chikamatsu's stuff.

Hello there, just joined and found your Bunraku question. I dont know too much about the literature side of the Bunraku, more the technical and performance aspect.

One of the books I have that has a good collection of stories is "Bunraku - Japan's Unique Puppet Theatre" by Shuzaburo Hironaga. It gives a brief outline of the stories, including Sonezaki Shinju, Kanadehon Chushingura and Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami.

The full play of Sugawara is avaliable as an English traslation while the Hironaga book crops up on e-bay sometimes. Hope this is of some use to you.