Genroku culture

[1][2] Genroku culture is known as a period of luxurious display when the arts were increasingly patronized by a growing and powerful merchant class.

[7][better source needed] Genroku culture would contribute to the development of Neo-Confucian thought, natural science, and classical study.

Although this genre in its initial stages focused on the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters, later it was used as a tool to represent iconographic figures and satirize various classics and issues of the time.

One notable kibyoshi author was Santō Kyōden (山東京伝), who generated sales of over ten thousand copies, with his compositions considered the most read literature during the Genroku era.

Examples are the bunraku and kabuki plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon, the Ukiyozōshi of Ihara Saikaku, and the poetic essays and haiku of Matsuo Bashō.

Performances were often held in outdoor theaters in dry riverbeds and alongside carnival entertainments such as bear and tiger acts or sumo wrestling.

Puppet theater was attractive to writers, and many famous bunraku plays, such as Date Musume Koi no Higanoko (伊達娘恋緋鹿子), would later be adapted for kabuki.

Unlike kabuki or bunraku, the development of Noh drama is usually portrayed as one of steady ascent, and was typically seen as an upper-class style of theater, frequently drawing from Shinto legend.