Within the period of Japans written history several eruptions are recorded the last having been in 1707, when the whole summit burst into flame, rocks were shattered, ashes fell to a depth of several inches even in Yedo (TOkyO), 60 m.
It came into existence in KiOto and was thence transferred to Yedo (Tokyo), where the greatest of Japanese playwrights, Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), and a musician of exceptional talent, Takemoto Gidayu, collaborated to render this puppet drama a highly popular entertainment.
It flourished for nearly 200 years in Yedo, and is still occasionally performed in Osaka.
Yedo, the shOLiterature guns capital, displaced KiOto as the centre of literary of the activity.
Immediately after the conclusion of the first treaty in 1857, the Yedo authorities instructed the office for studying foreign books (Bunsho torishirabedokoro) to translate excerpts from European and American journals.
