Talking Shows in the Precinct of ‘Osaka Tenmagu’ Shrine in the late Edo Era

Abstract

In this paper the present writer examines the situations and frequencies of talking shows in show houses, which were allowed to be built in the precinct of Tenmagu Shrine in Osaka, from the end of 18th century to the middle of 19th century. There must have been show houses in precincts of other shrines, but Osaka Tenmagu is almost the only shrine that has kept documents of those houses.

Through the examinations of the douments, we come to know that the genre of ‘rakugo’ was separately established from other talking shows after around the 1830s as ‘mukashi banashi’.