Matsuo Kinsaku, the 17th-century Japanese haiku master, more commonly known as Basho, the son of a minor samurai born near Kyoto in 1644, is said to be Japan’s most famous poet, as well as one of the world’s most influential.
He is the undisputed master of haiku, short form traditional Japanese poetry, a form of poetry and creative writing that is now popular around the world with hundreds of thousands of haiku being written every year in many different languages, and not just in in Japan.
Basho was a lay Zen Buddhist and in fact never took his vows to become a Buddhist monk despite his poetry reflecting many Zen Buddhist themes and his knowledge of the religion. Indeed, many believing him to be a Japanese Zen monk, referred to him as such.
He established Japan’s best known poetry school of haikai no renga, the Shofu (蕉風). The school’s style was seen at the time as a return to traditional poetry, which retained important rules and humour but introduced new concepts in poetry such as linking poems, shiori.
Basho wrote the most famous Japanese poem ever written, a simple poem about a frog that has been translated in myriad ways into English.
Into the calm old lake A frog with flying leap goes plop! The peaceful hush to break. (William J. Porter)
Old pond frog leaping splash (Cid Corman)
Old pond – frogs jumped in – sound of water. (Lafcadio Hearn)
A lonely pond in age-old stillness sleeps … A part, unstirred by sound or motion … till Suddenly into it a lithe frog leaps. (Curtis Hidden Page)
The original Japanese is:
古池や蛙飛び込む水の音
Furu ike ya, kawazu tobikomu, mizu no oto
Basho is also known for Oku no hosomichi, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, describing his visit to northern Japan, which is considered by critics and many experts in and outside Japan to be one of the most beautiful works of Japanese literature.
