Matsuo Basho
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Basho (bah-shoh), pseudonym of Matsuo Munefusa (1644-94), Japanese poet, considered the finest writer of Japanese haiku during the formative years of the genre. Born into a samurai family prominent among nobility, Basho rejected that world and became a wanderer, studying Zen, history, and classical Chinese poetry, living in apparently blissful poverty under a modest patronage and from donations by his many students. From 1667 he lived in Edo (now Tokyo), where he began to compose haiku.
The structure of his haiku reflects the simplicity of his meditative life. When he felt the need for solitude, he withdrew to his basho-an, a hut made of plantain leaves (basho)-hence his pseudonym. Basho infused a mystical quality into much of his verse and attempted to express universal themes through simple natural images, from the harvest moon to the fleas in his cottage. Basho brought to haiku "the Way of Elegance" (fuga-no-michi), deepened its Zen influence, and approached poetry itself as a way of life (kado, the way of poetry) in the belief that poetry could be a source of enlightenment. "Achieve enlightenment, then return to this world of ordinary humanity," he advised. And, "Do not follow in the footsteps of the old masters, but seek what they sought." His "way of elegance" did not include the mere trappings associated with elegance; he sought the authentic vision of "the ancients." His attention to the natural world transformed this verse form from a frivolous social pastime into a major genre of Japanese poetry.
In the last ten years of his life Basho made several journeys, drawing from them more images to inspire his contemplative poetry. He also collaborated with local poets on the linked-verse forms known as renga. In addition to being the supreme artist of haiku and renga, Basho wrote haibun, brief prose-and-poetry travelogues such as Oku-no-hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Far North; 1689; Eng. trans., 1974), that are absolutely nonpareil in the literature of the world.
Contributed by geertdj@hotmail.com
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This article was written by Knowledgerush staff or contributed by users. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
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Matsuo Basho (松尾芭蕉, 1644 - November 28, 1694), was the pseudonym of Matsuo Munefusa, the Japanese poet usually referred to simply as "Basho" without the surname. He is widely thought of as one of the greatest writers of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and is best remembered today for raising the haiku form to its highest level.
He was born in Ueno, near Kyoto, and was known as Kinsaku as a child. He was the son of a low-ranking samurai, and initially worked in the service of a local lord, Todo Yoshitada. He began writing poetry while there, but moved to Edo (now Tokyo) upon his lord's death in 1666. He took the name Basho, which means banana tree, in the 1680s when he moved into a hut alongside a banana tree and became a recluse. (It is said that the climate was too cool for this tree to bear fruit, and that he intended the pen-name to evoke the idea of a useless poet, or at least of affection for what is useless.) He gained a reputation as a great poet and critic after the move to Edo.
It was Basho who raised the haiku from a comic verse, often written for light relief, to a serious form, imbued with the spirit of Zen Buddhism. Many of his haiku were in fact the first three lines of longer renga (which some critics consider his best work) rather than standalone works, but they have been collected and published on their own many times and his work was a great inspiration to later writers such as Kobayashi Issa and Masaoka Shiki.
Basho travelled very widely during his life, and many of his writings reflect his experiences on his travels. His book Oku no Hosomichi (奥の細道, The Narrow Road Through the Deep North), written in 1694 and widely seen as his finest, is an example of this. In it, prose descriptions of the landscape through which he travelled are interspersed with the haiku for which he is now most famous.
Basho died in 1694 in Osaka.
External links
Referenced By
Haiku | HaikuPoem | Haiku poems | Japanese Literature | Japanese folklore | Kiso Yoshinaka | List of Japan-related topics L-Z | List of Japanese authors:M | List of people by name: Mas | List of people by name: Mas-Maz | List of people by name: Mat | Minamoto no Yoshinaka | Naruko | Naruko, Tamatsukuri, Miyagi | Tohoku | Tohoku region
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Matsuo Basho".
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Basho (bah-shoh), pseudonym of Matsuo Munefusa (1644-94), Japanese poet, considered the finest writer of Japanese haiku during the formative years of the genre. Born into a samurai family prominent among nobility, Basho rejected that world and became a wanderer, studying Zen, history, and classical Chinese poetry, living in apparently blissful poverty under a modest patronage and from donations by his many students. From 1667 he lived in Edo (now Tokyo), where he began to compose haiku.
The structure of his haiku reflects the simplicity of his meditative life. When he felt the need for solitude, he withdrew to his basho-an, a hut made of plantain leaves (basho)-hence his pseudonym. Basho infused a mystical quality into much of his verse and attempted to express universal themes through simple natural images, from the harvest moon to the fleas in his cottage. Basho brought to haiku "the Way of Elegance" (fuga-no-michi), deepened its Zen influence, and approached poetry itself as a way of life (kado, the way of poetry) in the belief that poetry could be a source of enlightenment. "Achieve enlightenment, then return to this world of ordinary humanity," he advised. And, "Do not follow in the footsteps of the old masters, but seek what they sought." His "way of elegance" did not include the mere trappings associated with elegance; he sought the authentic vision of "the ancients." His attention to the natural world transformed this verse form from a frivolous social pastime into a major genre of Japanese poetry.
In the last ten years of his life Basho made several journeys, drawing from them more images to inspire his contemplative poetry. He also collaborated with local poets on the linked-verse forms known as renga. In addition to being the supreme artist of haiku and renga, Basho wrote haibun, brief prose-and-poetry travelogues such as Oku-no-hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Far North; 1689; Eng. trans., 1974), that are absolutely nonpareil in the literature of the world.
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Matsuo Basho (Banana Tree) 1644-1694
Known as the first great poet in the history of haiku.
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Books by Matsuo Basho
Basho's Haiku
[2126]
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