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a haiga (poem, calligraphy and painting) by Basho |
context: poetry > haiku
Matsuo Basho 1643-94
By Basho's time, haiku had become about technical gimmickry. Nishiyama Soin (1605-82) changed haiku, and was considered a revolutionary modernist; but Basho went much further, and became probably Japan's best-loved poet. "Before Basho, the haiku men indulged in word play which incited him to raise the dignity of haiku to a higher level", according to Suzuki. The Narrow Road To The Deep North, an account of six months of travel in 1689 in the form of haiku and linking text, was a huge influence on all that followed. He was a very sensitive, delicate poet, who wrote about simple things. Refinement and truth were key to his poetry: a very Zen approach to grasping the essences of life. His most famous poem, the most famous haiku, has been translated countless times - there is a book of over 100 English translations, and I came across a website with 33 translations (I particularly like "Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis"). "Furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto" is literally "Old pond / frog jump-in / water sound," but we might go with "An old pond - a frog jumps in: the sound of water." "This is said to have been the revolutionary alarm given by Basho to the haiku world of seventeenth-century Japan," again according to Suzuki.