( Here is the most complete single-volume collection o...)
Here is the most complete single-volume collection of writings by one of the great luminaries of Asian literature. Includes a masterful translation of Basho's most celebrated work, Narrow Road to the Interior, along with three less well-known works and over 250 of Basho's finest haiku. The translator has included an overview of Basho's life and an essay on the art of haiku.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1570622825/?tag=2022091-20
(Vivid new translations of Basho's popular haiku, in a sel...)
Vivid new translations of Basho's popular haiku, in a selected format ideal for newcomers as well as fans long familiar with the Japanese master. Basho, the famously bohemian traveler through seventeenth-century Japan, is a poet attuned to the natural world as well as humble human doings; "Piles of quilts/ snow on distant mountains/ I watch both," he writes. His work captures both the profound loneliness of one observing mind and the broad-ranging joy he finds in our connections to the larger community. David Young, acclaimed translator and Knopf poet, writes in his introduction to this selection, "This poet's consciousness affiliates itself with crickets, islands, monkeys, snowfalls, moonscapes, flowers, trees, and ceremonies...Waking and sleeping, alone and in company, he moves through the world, delighting in its details." Young's translations are bright, alert, musically perfect, and rich in tenderness toward their maker.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307962008/?tag=2022091-20
('It was with awe That I beheld Fresh leaves, green leav...)
'It was with awe That I beheld Fresh leaves, green leaves, Bright in the sun' In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North, he was an ardent student of Zen Buddhism, setting off on a series of travels designed to strip away the trappings of the material world and bring spiritual enlightenment. He wrote of the seasons changin, of the smells of the rain, the brightness of the moon, and beauty of the waterfall, through which he sense mysteries of the universe. Theres seventeenth-century travel writing not only chronicle Basho's perilous journeys through Japan, but they also capture his vision of eternity in the transient world around him. In his lucid translation Nobuyuki Yuasa captures the Lyrical qualities of Basho's poetry and prose by using the natural rhythms and language of the contemporary speech. IN his introduction, he examines the development of the haibun style in which poetry and prose stand side by side. this edition also includes maps and notes on the texts. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140441859/?tag=2022091-20
(Basho, one of the greatest of Japanese poets and the mast...)
Basho, one of the greatest of Japanese poets and the master of haiku, was also a Buddhist monk and a life-long traveller. His poems combine 'karumi', or lightness of touch, with the Zen ideal of oneness with creation. Each poem evokes the natural world - the cherry blossom, the leaping frog, the summer moon or the winter snow - suggesting the smallness of human life in comparison to the vastness and drama of nature. Basho himself enjoyed solitude and a life free from possessions, and his haiku are the work of an observant eye and a meditative mind, uncluttered by materialism and alive to the beauty of the world around him. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140444599/?tag=2022091-20
( Zen Buddhism distinguishes itself by brilliant flashes ...)
Zen Buddhism distinguishes itself by brilliant flashes of insight and its terseness of expression. The haiku verse form is a superb means of studying Zen modes of thought and expression, for its seventeen syllables impose a rigorous limitation that confines the poet to vital experience. Here haiku by Bashõ are translated by Robert Aitken, with commentary that provides a new and far deeper understanding of Bashõs work than ever before. In presenting themes from the haiku and from Zen literature that open the doors both to the poems and to Zen itself, Aitken has produced the first book about the relationship between Zen and haiku. His readers are certain to find it invaluable for the remarkable revelations it offers.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593760086/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006CF7PU/?tag=2022091-20
(A wonderful new translation of the poetry of BashoZen mo...)
A wonderful new translation of the poetry of BashoZen monk, poet of nature, and master of the haiku form.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0791461661/?tag=2022091-20
(Book by Basho, Matsuo, Thoreau, Henry David)
Book by Basho, Matsuo, Thoreau, Henry David
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0834802775/?tag=2022091-20
(The seventeenth-century Japanese poet describes his two-y...)
The seventeenth-century Japanese poet describes his two-year 1500-mile pilgrimage across the island of Honshu
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Basho was born in Ueno (now Iga), Mie, Japan in 1644. He was one of six children in a family of samurai, descended it is said from the great Taira clan of the Middle Ages. Basho was interested in poetry from an early age. Little is known of his childhood.
He studied the Japanese classics in Kyoto.
As a youth, Basho entered feudal service but at the death of his master left it to spend much of his life in wandering about Japan in search of imagery. In 1672, at the age of 29, Basho set out for Edo (modern Tokyo), the seat of the Tokugawa shoguns and defacto capital of Japan. There he published a volume of verse in the style of the Teitoku school called Kai-Oi. In 1675 he composed a linked-verse sequence with Nishiyama Soin of the Danrin school, but for the next 4 years he was engaged in building waterworks in the city to earn a living. Thereafter, generous friends and admirers made it possible for him to continue a life devoted to poetic composition, wandering, and meditation, though he seems to have been largely unconcerned with money matters.
In 1680, thanks to the largesse of an admirer, Basho established himself in a small cottage at Fukagawa in Edo, thus beginning his life as a hermit of poetry. A year later one of his followers presented him with a banana plant, which was duly planted in Basho's garden. His hermitage became known as the Hermitage of the Banana Plant (Basho-an), and the poet, who had heretofore been known by the pen name Tosei, came increasingly to use the name Basho. The hermitage burned down in 1682, causing Basho to retire to Kai Province.
In 1683 the hermitage was rebuilt and Basho returned to Edo. But in the summer of 1684 Basho made a journey to his birthplace, which resulted in the travel diary The Weatherbeaten Trip (Nozarashi Kiko). That same year he published the haiku collection entitled Winter Days (Fuyu no Hi). It was in Winter Days that Basho enunciated his revolutionary style of haiku composition - shofu. Winter Days, published in Kyoto, was compiled under Basho's direction by his Nagoya disciple Yamamoto Kakei.
In the autumn of 1688 Basho went to Sarashina, in present-day Nagano Prefecture, to view the moon, a hallowed autumn pastime in Japan. He recorded his impressions in The Sarashina Trip (Sarashina Kiko). Though one of his lesser travel diaries, it is a kind of prelude to his description of a journey to northern Japan a year later. It was at this time that Basho also wrote a short prose account of the moon as seen from Obasute Mountain in Sarashina.
The Journey to Ou (Oku no Hosomichi) is perhaps the greatest of Basho's travel diaries. A mixture of haiku and haibun, a prose style typical of Basho, it contains some of his greatest verses. This work immortalizes the trip Basho made from Sendai to Shiogama on his way to the two northernmost provinces of Mutsu and Dewa (Ou).
He proceeded to Hiraizumi to view ruins dating from the Heian Period. On the site of the battlefield where Yoshitsune had fallen, Basho composed a poem: "A wilderness of summer grass hides all that remains of warriors' dreams." In the province of Dewa he was fortunate enough to find shelter at the home of a well-to-do admirer and disciple. Passing on to a temple, Risshakuji, Basho was deeply inspired by the silence of the place situated amidst the rocks. It occasioned the verse which some consider his masterpiece: "Stillness! It penetrates the very rocks-/ the shrill-chirping of the cicadas."
In 1690 Basho lived for a time in quiet retirement at the Genju-an (Unreal Dwelling) near Lake Biwa, north of Kyoto, and he wrote an account of this stay. Early in 1691 he stayed for a time in Saga with his disciple Mukai Kyorai. In the late fall of 1691 Basho returned to Edo, where a new Banana Hermitage had been built near the site of the former one, complete with another banana plant in the garden. For the next 3 years Basho remained there receiving his disciples, discussing poetry, and helping in the compilation of another anthology, The Sack of Charcoal (Sumidawara) of 1694.
In the spring of 1694 Basho set out for what was to be his last journey to his birthplace. At Osaka he was taken ill. Perceiving that he was near his end, Basho wrote a final poem on his own death: "Stricken while journeying my dreams still wander about/ but on withered fields."
Matsuo Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form, he elevated haiku to the level of serious poetry in numerous anthologies and travel diaries. Namely, he developed a new style of writing poetry which was a combination of the travel visual treats and the feelings that a traveler goes through, he was the author of Oku no Hosomichi, considered one of the major texts of Japanese literature of the Edo period. A special word 'shofu' was coined to describe his manner different from the preceding haiku, which ment "haiku in the Basho manner".
('It was with awe That I beheld Fresh leaves, green leav...)
(Vivid new translations of Basho's popular haiku, in a sel...)
(Basho, one of the greatest of Japanese poets and the mast...)
( Here is the most complete single-volume collection o...)
(The seventeenth-century Japanese poet describes his two-y...)
(A wonderful new translation of the poetry of BashoZen mo...)
( Zen Buddhism distinguishes itself by brilliant flashes ...)
(Book by Basho, Matsuo, Thoreau, Henry David)
Matsuo Basho was a religious person. He wrote several poetries on religion. He also studied Zen Buddhism for a while and it was stated that he was moving towards spirituality though there are no certain proofs on them.
He was not related to politics and there are no statements that record his inclination to politics.
Quotations:
"Many of my followers can write hokku as well as I can. Where I show who I really am is in linking haikai verses."
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought.”
He dressed and conducted himself in a clerical manner and must have been profoundly motivated by a mystical faith. He can also be identified as an introvert and a nature lover. He spent most of his life in solitude all alone.
Though there is no information on Matsuo Basho’s formal marriage. Many claim that Basho’s primary reason for leaving his home and starting out a new journey of his own resulted from his love affair. It is believed that he was in love with his elder brother’s wife or with one of the waiting ladies who served the landlord’s son to whom Basho was a servant. Though there are no clear proofs on this.
It is also claimed that Basho had kept a mistress who bore him one or more than one children. She became a nun in the later part of her life and became to be called as Jutei.
