Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) was one of the greatest Japanese poets. He elevated haiku to the level of serious poetry in numerous anthologies and travel diaries. The name of Matsuo Basho is associated especially with the celebrated Genroku era (ca....

Famous Japanese poet (1643–1694). A great traveller and lover of nature, he was the founder of the modern school of Haiku (q.v.) in which he embodied, as few before or since, the spirit of...

Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉, Matsuo Bashō? 1644 – 28 November 1694) was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was renowned for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, he is recognized as a...

In the following essay, Shirane explores the “link by scent” technique used by Bashō, in which a verse “carries the atmosphere of its predecessor,” much as the fragrance of a flower is carried by the wind. This essay originally contained ideographic characters, which have been silently removed for this reprinting.

In the following excerpt, Foard discusses the three stages of Bashō's life: his early years, his poetic and spiritual wanderings, and his life as a literary and religious master. The critic proposes that Bashō utilized his haiku in an attempt to overcome his isolation and discover his true self.

In the following excerpt, Ueda argues that Bashō's poetic concepts of “fragrance,” “revelation,” “reflection,” and “lightness”—which concern how the “poetic spirit” can be revealed in a poem—are manifestations of the poet's ideas about life, including his religious pessimism, pragmatic optimism, feudalistic conventionalism, and bourgeois liberalism.