In the fall of 1684, Bashō began the first of a series of journeys that occupied much of the remaining ten years of his life. On his first journey, commemorated in his travel diary Skeleton in the Fields (Nozarashi kikō), Bashō traveled west, visiting the provinces of Owari (Aichi), Mino (Gifu), and Ōmi (Shiga)—especially the area south of Lake Biwa—and recruiting followers in all three areas before returning to Edo in the summer of 1685. At Nagoya, he composed linked verse with a local group led by Kakei that resulted in the Withering Gusts (Kogarashi) kasen, a thirty-six-verse haikai sequence, and in 1684 they compiled Winter Days (Fuyu no hi), the first major anthology of the Bashō circle and the beginning of what is now referred to as the Bashō style (Shōfū). In the early winter of 1687, in a journey later commemorated in Backpack Notes (Oi no kobumi), Bashō once again left Edo, returned to Iga Province, and then traveled to Yoshino, Nara, Suma, and Akashi, along the Inland Sea. At the end of the journey, in the fall of 1688, Bashō, accompanied by his disciple Etsujin, visited Obasuteyama (Abandoned Old Women Mountain) in Sarashina (Shinano), the site of the famous autumn moon, before returning to Edo at the end of the month—a journey commemorated in Journey to Sarashina (Sarashina kikō).
In the spring of 1689, Bashō departed once again, this time with his disciple Sora, for Mutsu, in the northeast, in an expedition later commemorated in Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no hosomichi). The arduous journey started in Fukagawa in mid-May 1689 and ended a little over five months and almost fifteen hundred miles later at Ōgaki in Mino. For the next two years, Bashō remained in the Kyoto-Osaka area. In September 1690, Gourd (Hisago) was published, an anthology of haikai compiled by his disciples at Ōmi (Lake Biwa) that embodied his new poetics of lightness (karumi). Together with Kyorai and Bonchō, two disciples in Kyoto, Bashō then edited Monkey’s Straw Coat (Sarumino), the magnum opus of the Bashō school, which was published in the summer of 1691. He finally returned to Edo in December 1691, at the age of forty-seven. There he became involved with a new group of Edo poets, centered on another disciple, Yaba, with whom he pursued the poetic ideal of lightness and eventually produced Charcoal Sack (Sumidawara), which was published in 1694. Bashō died the same year on a journey to Osaka.
BASHŌ AND THE ART OF HAIKAI
As stated earlier, the art of haikai encompasses a series of related genres: hokku, linked verse, haibun, and haiga (haikai painting), the last usually combining a hokku and a visual image. All these genres embodied what Bashō called “haikai spirit” (haii). First of all, haikai spirit implied the interaction of diverse languages and subcultures, particularly between the new popular culture and the poetic tradition, and the humor and interest resulting from the sociolinguistic incongruity or difference between the two. Second, haikai spirit meant taking pleasure in recontextualization: defamiliarization, dislocating habitual, conventionalized perceptions, and their refamiliarization, recasting established poetic topics into contemporary language and culture. The haikai spirit was also marked by a constant search for novelty and new perspectives. Finally, the haikai imagination implied the ability to interact in a playful, lively dialogue that produced communal art.
Of particular interest here is the complex relationship between haikai and tradition, especially the refiguring of cultural memory. Bashō looked for poetic and spiritual inspiration to classical and medieval poets, especially Nōin (998–1050?), Saigyō (1118–1190), and Sōgi (1421–1502)—all of whom were travelers and poet-priests—and he was strongly influenced by Chinese poetry and poetics, especially those of the mid-Tang poets Li Bo and Du Fu. At the same time, Bashō was a poet of haikai, which, by its very nature, was parodic, oppositional, and immersed in popular culture. One result of this cohabitation of contrastive languages and subcultures was the emergence in the seventeenth century of a culture of mitate (literally, seeing by comparison), which moved back and forth between the two starkly different worlds, that of the Japanese and Chinese “classics” and that of the new popular literature and drama, each providing a lens or filter with which to view the other. In contrast to allusive variation (honkadori), the poetic technique of “borrowing” (toru) from a classical “foundation poem” (honka)—which assumed with classical poetry a common base of diction, tone, and subject matter—the Edo-period mitate was characterized by startling, dramatic, and often witty changes that it made in the target text. Artists such as Hishikawa Moronobu (1618–1694), a pioneer of ukiyo-e prints, used the technique of mitate in the visual arts, both alluding to and radically transforming the topics and imagery of the classical tradition into a contemporary, commoner form.
Basho’s haikai differed from the mitate found in Moronobu’s ukiyo-e prints in that the popular culture in his poetry and prose was not that of the stylish men and women of the great urban centers’ floating world but that of the mundane, everyday lives of farmers and fishermen in the provinces. The new popular literature and drama, including haikai, originated in urban society, especially that of the three major metropolises of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo. Teitoku, the leader of Teimon haikai, was based in Kyoto; Sōin and Saikaku, the leaders of Danrin haikai, were from Osaka; but Bashō was a socially marginal figure. His poetry and prose are pervaded by liminal or marginal figures such as the beggar, the old man, the outcast, and the traveler, no doubt reflecting his own provincial origins. Likewise, his allusions are not to the Heian classical figures of Ariwara no Narihira, Ono no Komachi, and the shining Genji—the famous lovers so often referred to in contemporary ukiyo-e and by Ihara Saikaku—but to medieval traveler poets such as Saigyō and Sōgi or Chinese poets such as Li Bo and Du Fu. The difference is perhaps most evident in Basho’s treatment of nō drama. In contrast to the typical ukiyo-e mitate print, which alluded to the more erotic and elegant aspects of nō, especially the “women plays,” Bashō focused on the muted image of the waki, or traveling monk, and the fate of the tragic heroes of the “warrior plays.”
In the seventeenth century, as in previous centuries, a sharp distinction was maintained between the traditional genres—such as the thirty-one-syllable waka, Chinese poetry, and nō drama—and the new, popular genres—haikai, ukiyo-zōshi, jōruri, and kabuki. The popular genres such as Saikaku’s ukiyo-zōshi frequently parodied their classical counterparts by borrowing the elegant, aristocratic forms of traditional literature and giving them a popular, vulgar, or erotic content. In a reverse movement, Bashō gave a popular genre (haikai) a spiritual or refined content, or, more accurately, he sought out the spiritual and poetic in commoner culture, giving to the contemporary language and subject matter, particularly that drawn from provincial life, the kind of nuances and sentiments hitherto found only in classical or Chinese poetry. In this way, Bashō was able to raise haikai—which until then had been considered a form of light entertainment—into a serious genre and vehicle for cultural transmission that, with the modern haiku, achieved a canonical status.
HOKKU
kareeda ni Crows resting
karasu no tomarikeri on a withered branch—
aki no kure evening in autumn1
A haiga (haikai sketch), on the Chinese painting theme of cold crows on a withered branch. The painting is by Morikawa Kyoriku (1656–1715), Basho’s disciple and his painting instructor, and the calligraphy and poem are by Bashō: “On a withered branch, a crow comes to rest—end of autumn” (Kareeda ni / karasu no tomarikeri / aki no kure). Probably done around 1692/1693 while Kyoriku, a samurai from Hikone, was in Edo. Signed “Bashō Tosei.” (42.1 in. x 12.2 in. Courtesy of Idemitsu Museum of Arts)
Going out on the beach while the light is still faint:
akebono ya— Early dawn—
shirauo shiroki whitefish, an inch
koto issun of whiteness2
Having stayed once more at the residence of Master Tōyō, I was about to leave for the Eastern Provinces.
botan shibe fukaku From deep within
wakeizuru hachi no— the peony pistils, withdrawing
nagori kana regretfully, t
he bee3
Spending a whole day on the beach:
umi kurete The sea darkening—
kamonokoe the voice of a wild duck
honoka ni shiroshi faintly white4
furuikeya An old pond—
kawazu tobikomu a frog leaps in,
mizu no oto the sound of water5
On the road:
kutabirete Exhausted,
yado karu koro ya time to find a lodging—
fuji no hana hanging wisteria6
Lodging for the night at Akashi:
takotsubo ya Octopus traps—
hakanaki yume o fleeting dreams
natsu no tsuki under the summer moon7
hototogisu The cuckoo—
kieyuku kata ya where it disappears
shima hitotsu a single island8
While sleeping in a lodge in the capital and hearing each night the sorrowful chanting of the Kūya pilgrims:
karazake mo Dried salmon
Kūya no yase mo the gauntness of a Kūya pilgrim
kan no uchi in the cold season9
kogarashi ya Withering winds—
hohobare itamu the face of a man
hito no kao pained by swollen cheeks10
mugimeshi ni A cat’s wife—
yatsururu koi ka grown thin from
neko no tsuma— love and barley?11
hototogisu A cuckoo—
koe yokotau ya the voice lies stretched
mizu no ue over the water12
hiyahiya to Taking a midday nap
kabe o fumaete feet planted
hirune kana on a cool wall13
kiku no ka ya Chrysanthemum scent—
Nara ni wa furuki in Nara ancient statues
hotoketachi of the Buddha14
aki fukaki Autumn deepening—
tonari wa nani o my neighbor
suru hito zo how does he live, I wonder?15
kono michi ya This road—
yuku hito nashi ni no one goes down it
aki no kure autumn’s end16
Composed while ill:
tabi ni yande Sick on a journey
yume wa kareno o dreams roam about
kakemeguru on a withered moor17
[NKBZ 41: 61–282, translated by Haruo Shirane]
COMPOSING HAIKU
The successive verses in a linked-verse sequence were read both together and individually, as parts of a large scene and as a fragmentary collage. The same kind of tension existed in the seventeen-syllable hokku, which was both split and joined by the “cutting word” (kireji), generally marked by a dash in the English translation.
COMBINING
Morikawa Kyoriku (1656–1715), one of Basho’s foremost disciples, argued that the “combination poem” (toriawase), which brought together different topics in a single hokku, was the most important technique of the Bashō school and, furthermore, that it should leap beyond the established associations of a given topic. The end result was the unexpected “combination” of classical topics and popular subject matter, traditional and contemporary subcultures, classical diction and haikai words. The following is from Kyoriku’s Haikai Dialogue (Haikai mondo, 1697).
The Master: “In composing a hokku, my students begin by searching within the topic. This will not yield anything. But if they begin by searching outside the topic, they will find a plethora of material.”
I said, “I discovered this while reading Desolate Field and Monkey’s Straw Coat. My approach can be compared to placing the topic in a box, climbing on top of that box, and viewing heaven and earth from that perspective.”
The Master: “That is absolutely correct. That is why you were able to come up with verses like
kangiku no Next to even
tonari mo ari ya the winter chrysanthemums—
ikedaikon fresh radish”18
I then realized the following. If I search within the boundary of the topic, there will be nothing new. Even if, by some remote chance, something is left, if a neighbor decides to compose on the same topic on the same day, the neighbor will undoubtedly find it. Since the neighbor is following the same route, he or she is bound to come across it. This would be even truer if someone from a distant province or village were looking in a place with which I was not familiar. What would I find? On the other hand, if I leap beyond the boundary, it will be like a child who thinks differently from its parents or parents who conceive differently from their child.
The Master: “Ultimately, you should think of the hokku as something that combines. Those who are good at combining or bringing together two topics are superior poets.”
[KHT 10: 147]
In Three Booklets (Sanzōshi), a treatise recording Basho’s teachings, Dohō (1657–1730), Basho’s most talented and faithful Iga disciple, argues that the hokku should have “the spirit of going and returning,” a movement similar to that between a previous verse and an added verse in a linked-verse sequence. As the example suggests, Basho’s notion of the “combination poem” did not mean simply juxtaposing disparate elements but also finding some underlying connection between the seemingly disparate elements.
The hokku involves a spirit of the mind that moves in a specific direction and then returns. An example is
yamazato wa In the mountain village
manzai ososhi the New Year dancers are late—
ume no hana plum blossoms19
The poet first states that in the mountain village, the manzai, the New Year dancers, are late and then comes back to reveal that the plum trees are in bloom. This spirit of going and returning lies at the heart of the hokku. If the poem were simply “in the mountain village / the New Year dancers are late,” it would have no more force than a single verse in a linked-verse sequence.20
[NKBZ 51: 592]
Many modern readers, perhaps influenced by mimetic notions of poetry, tend to read Basho’s hokku as the depiction or sketch of a single scene, but as the following passage in Kyorai’s Gleanings (Kyoraishō) suggests, Basho’s hokku often started out as part of a “combination poem” with the poet trying to find the corresponding or matching part.
Shimogyō ya Southern Kyoto—
yuki tsumu ue no on top of the piled snow
yoru no ame the evening rain
Initially, the first line was missing. Everyone, beginning with Bashō, tried his hand at capping the verse, and the Master finally decided on this version. Bonchō remained unconvinced. In response, the Master said, “Bonchō, cap this verse and reveal your talent. If you can find a better alternative, I will never discuss haikai again.”21
[NKBZ 51: 434–435]
INTERMEDIARIES
To bridge the gap between the two parts of the combination poem, Kyoriku urged the use of an “intermediary word” to bring together the incongruous elements, especially traditional seasonal topics and vernacular words. In Haikai Dialogue, Kyoriku notes that the “newness” (atarashimi) in the late Bashō-school anthologies lies entirely in the use of these intermediary words.
Recently, I thought that “scent of plum blossoms” would make a good combination with “blue lacquer bowl” and tried various middle phrases, but none of them felt right.
ume ga ka ya Scent of plum blossoms—
shōjin-namasu ni pickled vegetables and
asagiwan a blue lacquer bowl
ume ga ka ya Scent of plum blossoms—
sue-narabetaru arranged in a row
asagiwan blue lacquer bowls
ume ga ka no Scent of plum blossoms
dokotomonashi ni from somewhere or other
asagiwan a blue lacquer bowl
I tried these various possibilities, but none of them was successful. When the subject matter and the combination are excellent but a good hokku does not materialize, it means that the necessary intermediary has yet to be found. After more searching, I came up with the following:
ume ga ka ya Scent of plum blossoms—
kyaku no hana ni wa beneath the guest’s nose
&nbs
p; asagiwan a blue lacquer bowl22
[KHT 10: 147–148]
SINGLE-OBJECT POETRY
In response to Kyoriku’s emphasis on the combination poem and his claim that combining separate topics or images was Bashō’s central technique, Kyorai (1651–1704), another of Bashō’s disciples, argued that although combining was certainly important, it did not take precedence over other techniques and that Bashō also composed “single-object” poems, which focused on one topic and flowed smoothly from start to finish, without the leap or gap found in the combination poem. The following is from Kyorai’s Gleanings, Kyorai’s notes on Bashō’s teachings.
The Master said, “A hokku that moves smoothly from the opening five syllables to the end is a superb verse.”
Shadō [another disciple] remarked, “The master once told me, ‘The hokku is not, as you believe, something that brings together two or three different things. Compose the hokku so that it flows like gold being hit and flattened by a hammer.’”. . .
Kyorai: “If a poet composes by combining separate things, he can compose many verses and compose them quickly. Beginning poets should know this. But when one becomes an accomplished poet, it is no longer a question of combining or not combining.”
[NKBZ 51: 498]
In Travel Lodging Discussion (Tabineron, 1699), Kyorai even went so far as to say that all hokku are single-object poems.
Generally speaking, all hokku focus on a single object. Allow me to explain and to provide some examples. First of all, the following verse is on a single object:
kegoromo ni Warmly wrapped
tsutsumite nukushi in its feathered robe—
kamo no ashi feet of the wild duck23
Bashō
They say that the Master took delight in this poem and told Shikō, “This hokku was deliberately composed on a single object.” Other examples include
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