Places, Images, Times & Transformations

Matsuo Bashō and the Art of Haiku

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Saigyō in traditional poetry, Sōgi in linked verse, Sesshō in painting, Rikyō in the tea ceremony, and indeed all those who have achieved real excellence in any art, possess one thing in common, that is a mind to obey nature, to be one with nature, throughout all the seasons of the year. Whatever such a mind sees is a flower, and whatever such a mind dreams of is the moon. It is only a barbarous mind that sees other than the flower, merely an animal mind that dreams of other than the moon. The first lesson for the artist is, therefore, to learn how to overcome such barbarism and animality, to follow nature, to be one with nature.

(Translation by Yuasa Nobuyuki)

These comments about the need to put oneself in tune with nature help explain much about the art of haiku, but Bashō's cultural heroes are basically from the earlier medieval period, and they are among the greatest figures in the entire Japanese cultural tradition. They all show a strong attachment to a Buddhist sense of the transience of the world and to the transcendental nature of truth. Saigyō (1118-1190), a courtier turned Buddhist monk at the end of the Heian period, is one of Japan's great religious poets, who wrote in the 31-syllable classic waka form. Sōgi was the master of the medieval renga form, mentioned above. Sesshō (1420-1506) was the most renowned of the medieval ink painters, and Rikyō (1522-1591) perfected the Japanese tea ceremony.

All of these masters had an interest in the arts of classical China as well, and indeed Sesshō actually traveled in China, where his paintings were apparently much appreciated. Through such examples, Bashō also came to appropriate some of the values of classical Chinese art and literature as well; indeed, the poems of the great Chinese Tang-dynasty poet Du Fu (712-770) were to remain a particular inspiration for Bashō during the length of his mature period. To choose such high and classical art as a model was a daring move, but Bashō so loved the creations, and the ideals of these men, and he absorbed them so well, that through the example of his own writing he was able to infuse what had been until his time a popular art with a powerful and suggestive level of deeper spiritual truth.

Yet, the artistic challenge for Bashō was great. How can a brief poem of 17 syllables convey such depth or profundity? Careful readers of Bashō's poetry over the generations find three different strategies that he, and the best of his successors, were able to develop. The first of these is what might be termed an "impersonal" quality. Brevity means that there is no space to include the kinds of common and descriptive words used in English or American poetry. Personal pronouns, or an expression of direct states of emotion "I feel happy, she feels angry" have to be ruthlessly omitted. Personal involvement can only be suggested through indirect means. As Bashō underscores in the passage cited above, the poet must become one with nature, so that, by revealing the truth of the object, as the poet perceives it, one reveals the truth about oneself.

Here is another famous passage, taken down by a student of Bashō, who reported that the master spoke as follows.

Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on your subject and do not learn. Your poetry issues of one accord when you and the object have become one-when you have plunged in deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there. However well-phrased your poetry may be, if your feeling is not natural-if the object and yourself are separate-then your poetry is not true poetry but merely your subjective counterfeit.

(Translation by Yuasa Nobuyuki)

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