Basho

Basho (Matsuo Basho) (mät`sō bä`shō), 1644–94, Japanese poet, critic, and essayist of the early Edo period. His literary name, Basho, is derived from the plantain trees [basho] near a hut built for him by a disciple. Basho played a central role in the development of haiku. He composed stanzas of haikai no renga (a sequence of linked verses, usually by a group of poets), whose opening, and most important, stanza (hokku) was later separated as the verse form haiku. A master of hokku and the integration of verses in a sequence, Basho imbued what was a social pastime with the spirit of Zen, creating a serious literary form capable of profound artistic expression. His poetry is noted for its sensitive exploration of nature of beauty, loneliness, suffering, and death. His later years were marked by several long and arduous journeys that provided the basis for his famous travel accounts. The Oku no hosomichi [narrow road to the interior], a reflection in poetry and prose on his travels through the northern hinterlands, is his masterpiece.

Bibliography

See M. Ueda, ed., Basho and His Interpreters (1992).

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Basho

 or Matsuo Basho orig. Matsuo Munefusa

(born 1644, Ueno, Iga province, Japan—died Nov. 28, 1694, Osaka) Japanese haiku poet, the greatest practitioner of the form. Following the Zen philosophy he studied, he attempted to compress the meaning of the world into the simple pattern of his poetry, disclosing hidden hopes in small things and showing the interdependence of all objects. His The Narrow Road to the Deep North (1694), a poetic prose travelogue, is one of the loveliest works of Japanese literature.

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Basho

full name Matsuo Basho, originally Matsuo Munefusa. 1644--94, Japanese poet and travel writer, noted esp for his haiku