BY C A R M E N H A R R I S

MATSUO BASHŌ AND THE HAIKU

MATSUO BASHŌ

• Life:1644 -1694• Born in the castle-town Ueno within Iga

Province.• Bashō’s family was originally from the

samurai class but for unknown reasons, some speculate because of the devastation of Oda Nobunaga’s forces preceding the Tokugawa shogunate, they were disenfranchised, losing a lot of their property and money.

• Family were now farmers and Bashō grew up in such a household despite their past lineage.

• At a young age, around 1666, Bashō adopted a haikai name known as Munefusa, or Sobo, and took up the Teimon style of haikai.

• In 1672 he moved to Edo to establish himself as a haikai master.

Picture right: Matsuo Bashō sculpture at the Chusonji temple in Hiraizumi, Japan

MATSUO BASHŌ CON.

• In 1680 Bashō left his residence in Edo and went to Fukagawa on the banks of the Sumida River. It was during this time that he acquired the name of the Bashō Hut after the bashō plant, or Japanese plantain, given to him in 1683.

• In1684 Bashō departed on the first of series of journeys. His travel diary Skeleton in the Fields was made during this travel through Nagoya in Owari, Mino, and Omi.

• In 1689 Bashō departed again, this time with his friend Sora, for Michinoku in the northeast. This travel would later be depicted in the famous Narrow Road to the Interior.

BASHŌ'S HUT ON CAMELLIA HILL. NO. 40 OF THE ONE HUNDRED FAMOUS VIEWS OF EDO BY

HIROSHIGE (1856-58).

LITERARY WORKS BY BASHŌ

• Kai Ōi (The Seashell Game) (1672)• Edo Sangin (江戸三吟?) (1678)• Inaka no Kuawase (田舎之句合?) (1680)• Tōsei Montei Dokugin Nijū Kasen (桃青門弟独吟廿歌仙?) (1680)• Tokiwaya no Kuawase (常盤屋句合?) (1680)• Minashiguri (虚栗?, "A Shriveled Chestnut") (1683)• Nozarashi Kikō (Record of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton) (1684)• *Fuyu no Hi (Winter Days) (1684)• Haru no Hi (Spring Days) (1686)*• Kawazu Awase (Frog Contest) (1686)• Kashima Kikō (A Visit to Kashima Shrine) (1687)• Oi no Kobumi, or Utatsu Kikō (Record of a Travel-Worn Satchel) (1688)• Sarashina Kikō (A Visit to Sarashina Village) (1688)• Arano (Wasteland) (1689)*• Hisago (The Gourd) (1690)*• Sarumino (猿蓑?, "Monkey's Raincoat") (1691)*• Saga Nikki (Saga Diary) (1691)• Bashō no Utsusu Kotoba (On Transplanting the Banana Tree) (1691)• Heikan no Setsu (On Seclusion) (1692)• Fukagawa Shū (Fukagawa Anthology)• Sumidawara (A Sack of Charcoal) (1694)*• Betsuzashiki (The Detached Room) (1694)• Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Interior) (1694)• Zoku Sarumino (The Monkey's Raincoat, Continued) (1698)*

HAIBUN: NARROW ROAD TO THE INTERIOR

• Haibun means “haikai prose”• This was a new, unprecedented genre of writing, especially travel

writing, that mixed “Chinese prose genres, Japanese classical prototypes, and vernacular language and subject matter, thereby bringing together at least three major cultural axes.”

• This type of genre Bashō used to combine “natural objects and human artifacts that bore the traces of the past and that became the carriers of collective memory.”

• The Narrow Road to the Interior suggested, through Bashō’s writing, that “travel, in short, became a means both of recuperating the past and refiguring cultural memory.”

• This type of thought that Bashō brought to Haibun, and to travel writing in general, percolates throughout his haikai and haiku.

A NEW POPULARITY: THE HAIKU BEFORE AND DURING BASHŌ

• The haiku was actually not separated from the haikai before Bashō.

• The haikai and other forms of literature became popular, and emerged, from the interaction between the new popular, largely urban, commoner—and samurai-based cultures.

• Haikai is a humorous poem that showed interactions between languages and subcultures, “particularly between the new popular cultures and the elite traditions, and the humor and interest” that resulted from this juxtaposition.

• Because of its nature of mixing both old traditions and cultures and with newer, more urban cultures, it was immersed in popular culture. It was heavily fixed with the material culture it emerged from (that of the more common, everyday life).

• Often focused on the stylish men and women of the world and of the great urban centers such as Kyoto, Edo, etc.

BASHŌ’S SENSIBILITIES IN HAIKU AND HAIKAI — “A NEW PERSPECTIVE”

• Was responsible for separating the hokku (the original term for what we know as haiku) from the haikai, or “linking verse.”

The hokku was placed in the beginning of the haikai and was considered the most important part of the haikai. Bashō changed the poetic thought process of the hokku and made it an independent poem. • Bashō’s haikai was considered unorthodox because it forsook the growing

flamboyant material culture of the new cities in Japan. Instead, Basho gave a much more humbler, simpler form of the haikai and subsequently the haiku.

• Bashō based many of his thoughts on the haiku and haikai from the concept of karumi or “lightness.”

• However, Bashō also based his poetics of haikai and haiku on Zen-aesthetics, namely, sabi and wabi.

Sabi: “implies contented solitariness, and in Zen is associated with early monastic experience, when a high degree of detachment is cultivated.”Wabi: “Wabi can be described as the spirit of poverty, an appreciation of the commonplace, and is perhaps most fully achieved in the tea ceremony, which, from the simple utensils used in the preparation of the tea to the

very structure of the tea hut, honours the humble.”

MATSUO BASHŌ’S HIBISCUS WITH HAIKU

HAIKU BEFORE AND AFTER BASHŌ

Haiku/Haikai (before Bashō)

A sake barrel, Born without hands, makes merry — Cherry blossom time.

By Ihara Saikaku

Haiku (Bashō’s Style)

On a journey, ill— and my dreams, on withered fields are wandering still.

By Bashō

There a beggar goes! Heaven and Earth he’s wearing for his summer clothes!

By Yamaguchi Sōdō

*Both haiku’s can be found in our Anthology of Japanese Literature text (pg. 384-5).

JUST FOR FUN: A “MODERN” USE OF HAIKU

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7-2_gUuWK4

A FEW MORE TERMS: HOKKU

• Hokku: hokku is the original name for the 5,7,5 syllable poetry that is present in haikai (a comical linked verse poem). The first hokku poem in the haikai (the very first 5,7,5 lines) are considered the hinging point of the rest of the poem for the beginning hokku will often dictate what the twists and turns will be within the poem itself as it sets the patterns and themes to follow (such as whether it is spring, summer, autumn, or winter).

 • The hokku is also the term given for the soon to be separated independent poem

that Basho perfects which will become our modern day haiku. During Basho's time, even though he began separating the first 5,7,5 poetry of the haikai,  a new term had not been coined as everyone recognized the art form as hokku.

 • Thus, hokku is also the original name for the independent 5,7,5 syllable poem

that will become haiku.

HAIKAI

• Haikai: is a "humorous" poem of linked verse. Unlike what we may have been told in our anthology, haikai can be written by one author. However, the general point of haikai is to be formed in the midst of other poets. Thus, most haikai have multiple authors but are considered a singular piece of work. (I am not sure how they determined who the main author was. Based on speculation I believe it is the one who begins the poem that kind of becomes the "head" poet.)

 • Haikai consists of the alteration of 5,7,5 syllable poetry and 7,7 syllable poetry.

(Our book has a very confusing example but I believe the page number is 370 or something if you want visual aid.)

 • The haikai became popular during the Edo period as a parody of the renga poem

which is also linked verse (the styles are the same it is just how the subject material is handled that changes).

HAIKU

• Now, haiku: Haiku is the independent poem form of 5,7,5 that we recognize today. This is what Basho was "inventing" in his time period though it was called something else (the hokku). The name for haiku probably came because haiku was now its own medium of poetry and was separate from the haikai and therefore to not confuse the hokku from the independent form, they changed the name. This is my own interpretation. I do not know how the haiku was named as the haiku or when. I can look it up if you so desire.

• I would just say that the haiku is the independent 5,7,5 verse poem that Basho was perfecting during the 1600s.

SOURCES

“A Brief History in Haiku.” Literary Kicks. N.p., 1994. Web. 16 March 2015.

Cohen, William Howard. To Walk in Seasons: An Introduction to Haiku.Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1972. Print.

“Matsuo Bashō.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. WikimediaFoundation, Inc., 9 March 2015. Web. 16 March 2015.

Shirane, Haruo. Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, andthe Poetry of Bashō. Stanford: Stanford University Press,

1998. Print.Yuasa, Nobuyuki. “Laughter in Japanese Haiku.” Rediscovering Basho.

BRILL/Global Oriental, 1999. Print.