About Matsuo Basho
Matsuo Basho was one of the most famous haiku masters in the world. His poems were influenced by his firsthand experience of the world around him, often encapsulating the feeling of a scene in a few simple elements. Despite his success, Basho grew dissatisfied and lonely. He began to practice Zen meditation, but it seems not to have calmed his mind. He traveled during all his lifetime, where he met several poets who called themselves his disciples and wanted his advice. Even during his lifetime, the effort and style of his poetry were widely appreciated; after his death, it only increased. Many of his students compiled quotations from him about his own poetry, most notably Mukai Kyorai and Hattori Doho.Matsuo Basho appears as the leader of the poetic school known as Shofu. His gratitude lies in his attempt to restore to Japanese poetry all its classical purity. He cultivated, in the art of haiku, a short poem of seventeen, the two rules of composition that best served him: purity and refinement, two qualities that he considered complementary. He also discovered the essential theme: that of nature. Every haiku must contain a word that reflects the seasons. The cherry blossom, the swallow, indicate spring; the boar, or the lotus flower announces summer; the equinox or insects, autumn; leaves in the snow, winter. It is a subtle poetry, full of sensations, a creator of atmospheres, and the foundation of an entire philosophy, an art of observing life. This explains, moreover, the importance of his travels for this author, whose adventures he recorded in an admirable diary.
Browse all poems and texts published on Matsuo Basho
Some of his best haikus and poems are now celebrated on monuments and traditional sites.
