Chikamatsu Monzaemon (近松 門左衛門, real name Sugimori Nobumori, 杉森 信盛, 1653 – 6 January 1725) was a Japanese dramatist of jōruri, the form of puppet theater that later came to be known as bunraku, and the live-actor drama, kabuki.

The domestic plays are today considered the core of his artistic achievement, particularly works such as The Courier for Hell (1711) and The Love Suicides at Amijima (1721).

[5] After serving as a page, he next appears in records of the Gonshō-ji (近松寺) temple (long suggested as the origin of his pen name "Chikamatsu", which is kun reading of 近松) in Ōmi Province, in present-day Shiga Prefecture.

Chikamatsu's bunraku (jōruri) pieces, of which 24 are sewamono (domestic plays),[9] came to be regarded as high literature in the Meiji and Taishō eras.

While Chikamatsu's jidaimono (history plays) were considered more important in his own time, the domestic tragedies are now "the main focus of critical attention and the more frequently performed",[11] praised as deeply drawn in their portrayals of commoners.

[13] Also, it was written in Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900 that The Drum of the Waves of Horikawa (1707) is "of considerable interest for its exploration of female sexuality and its implicit critique of the life of lower-level samurai".

[19] Kenneth P. Kirkwood argued that the work is somewhat thin in texture but "nevertheless reveals the playwright's skill in making a dramatic plot out of the slightest materials.

"[20] In a review of Gerstle's Chikamatsu: Five Late Plays, Katherine Saltzman-Li praised the "depth of character" achieved in Twins at the Sumida River (1720) through the various allusions.

[19] Anne Walthall at UC Irvine said that the "vivid portrayal of interpersonal relations and individual personality [in Love Suicides on the Eve of the Kōshin Festival] provides excellent evidence why Chikamatsu's domestic plays have become more popular than his historical dramas.