Oshichi, the greengrocer's daughter: A cultural history of sewamono, 1686--1821

This dissertation explores an important mode of early-modern drama called the sewamono, often translated as "domestic drama." Sewamono originally began in kabuki theater as short sketches of events in the lives of commoners, with a particular focus on their crime. Sewamono appeared as afterpieces following historical plays---not unlike early twentieth-century newsreels and stories in tabloid papers---around the mid-17th century. With the help of the emerging print industry, sewamono were also quickly transformed into popular novellas ( ukiyozoshi).; As the first diachronic and cross-genre study of sewamono in English, the dissertation examines the evolution of the genre from its inception to the early-nineteenth century by focusing on the famous tale of Oshichi, a real-life sixteen-year-old woman executed at the stake for arson in 1683. As a "female criminal" story typical of sewamono , "Oshichi" exemplifies four phases in the development of the genre and dramaturgies of sewamono: (1) dramatized news in kabuki theater (1680s--1703); (2) melodrama in joruri puppet theater (1703--1724); (3) Edo kabuki's history-sewa (jidai-sewa) plays, in which sewamono were incorporated into historical plays; (4) Edo kabuki's "raw sewa" (kizewa) plays in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Each of these four phases will be examined to demonstrate how social change and ideology brought new genres and artistic methods to prominence as preferred narrative vehicles, and how those genres and methods reflected---as well as helped to construct---a new sense of self and society.; The dissertation will also illustrate the way in which the formalism of kabuki theater developed in close relation to the early melodramatic "realism" of sewamono, an expression of emerging modern sensibilities. Sewamono parodied the historical plays whose performances they were intended to follow. It was this very parodic function that kept sewamono tied to historical plays and prevented it from developing into an autonomous dramatic genre.