Narrow Road to the Interior - Matsuo Basho
"Hokku (seventeen-syllable poem) is like a tiny star, mind you, carrying the whole sky at its back. It is like a slightly-open door, where you may steal into the realm of poesy. It is simply a guiding lamp. Its value depends on how much it suggests." (A Proposal to American Poets, by Yonejiro Noguchi)
Haiku is an elusive form--it exists entirely aesthetically, more purely perhaps than conventional Western forms, and encourages its audience to pursue a subtle suggestion of experience. Meaning is evoked by the atmosphere which the poet breathes onto the page. Matsuo Basho (c. 1644-1694), a wandering poet of the Edo period, is traditionally considered the master of this form.
Basho, repelled by the middle class values he was born to, left a promising career in the military to pursue studies of Zen philosophy and poetry. He believed that the aesthetics provided a purpose in life, greater than the common striving for social or economic success. Basho gained early prestige as a poet, and a number of students vied for his instruction. As his disciples became more numerous and time consuming, Basho longed for the peace and lonely reflection that fueled his poetry. He embarked on a journey through northern Japan, to the quiet mountains. His travelogue is the "Narrow Road to the Interior," chronicling his visits to temples and communion with the austere, ancient country.
Summer grasses:
all that remains of great soldiers'
imperial dreams
Basho wrote this haiku upon reflection of the ruins of Yasuhira, a temple that was the site of a battle between the ruling families of Japan. The elite soldiers, though greatly outnumbered against their opponents, were held by their honor to protect Yasuhira. Their valor won them death--in death, they become mere grass, the fate shared by all men, noble or dishonorable.
Lonely stillness--
a single cicada's cry
sinking into stone
This is my favorite of Basho's haiku. The poem captures the heavy quiet of the ancient Ryushaku Temple. The image of sound pulled within the stone conveys the depth of solitude that Basho felt at the site. It's almost as though the writer (and thus, the reader) feels himself a stone, and hearing the cry of the cicada becomes an act of absorption, a part of that ancient process of uniting the soul with nature which is elemental in Japanese Shinto, Taoist and Buddhist philosophy. There is an enduring echo in the cicada's cry, retained forever in the stones of the temple ruins.
Haiku is an elusive form--it exists entirely aesthetically, more purely perhaps than conventional Western forms, and encourages its audience to pursue a subtle suggestion of experience. Meaning is evoked by the atmosphere which the poet breathes onto the page. Matsuo Basho (c. 1644-1694), a wandering poet of the Edo period, is traditionally considered the master of this form.
Basho, repelled by the middle class values he was born to, left a promising career in the military to pursue studies of Zen philosophy and poetry. He believed that the aesthetics provided a purpose in life, greater than the common striving for social or economic success. Basho gained early prestige as a poet, and a number of students vied for his instruction. As his disciples became more numerous and time consuming, Basho longed for the peace and lonely reflection that fueled his poetry. He embarked on a journey through northern Japan, to the quiet mountains. His travelogue is the "Narrow Road to the Interior," chronicling his visits to temples and communion with the austere, ancient country.
Summer grasses:
all that remains of great soldiers'
imperial dreams
Basho wrote this haiku upon reflection of the ruins of Yasuhira, a temple that was the site of a battle between the ruling families of Japan. The elite soldiers, though greatly outnumbered against their opponents, were held by their honor to protect Yasuhira. Their valor won them death--in death, they become mere grass, the fate shared by all men, noble or dishonorable.
Lonely stillness--
a single cicada's cry
sinking into stone
This is my favorite of Basho's haiku. The poem captures the heavy quiet of the ancient Ryushaku Temple. The image of sound pulled within the stone conveys the depth of solitude that Basho felt at the site. It's almost as though the writer (and thus, the reader) feels himself a stone, and hearing the cry of the cicada becomes an act of absorption, a part of that ancient process of uniting the soul with nature which is elemental in Japanese Shinto, Taoist and Buddhist philosophy. There is an enduring echo in the cicada's cry, retained forever in the stones of the temple ruins.
posted by Ashley at
10:40 PM
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