Matsuo Basho
The "saint of haiku" who raised haikai poetry to an art, author of "The Narrow Road to the Deep North."
Life
Iga samurai
Matsuo Basho was born into a low-ranking samurai family in Iga. As a young man he served the son of the domain lord and studied haikai with him, and he later moved to Edo, where he became a haikai master.
Fukagawa hut
Weary of the humor-driven haikai fashionable at the time, he retired to a thatched hut in Fukagawa and pursued an aesthetic of quiet solitude and lingering resonance. His famous verse "furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto" ("An old pond; a frog jumps in, the sound of water") is regarded as the model haiku.
Narrow Road to the Deep North
He traveled widely on foot many times, and in 1689 he set out from Edo with a disciple to journey through the Tohoku and Hokuriku regions, writing the travelogue "The Narrow Road to the Deep North." In 1694 he died of illness in Osaka while on a journey; his last poem was "Sick on a journey, my dreams go wandering over withered fields."
Legacy
Matsuo Basho is revered as the "sage of haiku"; the haiku form he established has become one of the shortest poetic forms in the world, written by people in many countries.
Major works & achievements
- "The Narrow Road to the Deep North"
- "Journal of Bleached Bones in a Field"
Did you know? Because he was always on the move and had astonishing stamina as a walker, some people even speculated that he was a spy for the shogunate.
Key dates
- 1672Arrived in Edo
- 1680Retired to the Basho Hut in Fukagawa
- 1686Wrote the "old pond" haiku
- 1689Began the journey of "The Narrow Road to the Deep North"
- 1694Died while traveling