Matsuo basho

Research Paper on Matsuo Basho
Many people think that composing Haikus is really simple; that it’s just a “17 syllable, 3 stanza poem”, as Steward W. Holmes said, that you compose when you feel something, but no. Haiku itself is an art form that not many people dominate. It goes further than feeling something; it is the pure emotion that floods the body when it comes in contact with nature.Matsuo Basho, a Japanese master of poetry is considered the father of the modern Haiku. To me, Matsuo Basho influenced Japanese literature so much because of his historical background, all of his life journeys throughout Japan in search for spiritual fulfillment and for giving birth to the revolutionary poetic style known as Haiku. When reading about Matsuo Basho’s life, I saw that there is avery important message that is portrayed throughout his experiences, that the mind has to be in complete equality with nature.

Matsuo Basho’s life was very rich and strong culturally speaking. He lived in 17th century Japan, where the almighty samurai warriors ruled the lands. Basho had as a goal to become a samurai warrior and because of this, he started training with the samurai master TodoYoshitada. He even acquired a samurai name, Matsuo Munefusa, as said in the Gale Online Encyclopedia. Samurai warriors can also be linked to literature because in the spare time they had from fighting in combat, they wrote poetry; the dominant style between them where the Haikai and later on the Haiku. This can also be seen as the catalyst for Matsuo Basho’s love for the form of Haiku. All ofhis hopes of becoming a samurai warrior died as his master unexpectedly died. After that incident, he felt spiritually empty. That is why he started to practice the Zen Buddhist religion; “Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one’s own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom” (Teitaro Suzuki 13). A great part of his life was spent in “make[ing] pilgrimages,visiting religious and secular sites, disseminating his ideas on haiku to fellow poets, and often begging alms for subsistence” (Gale Online Encyclopedia) across Japan studying this religion. In between trips, he wrote poetry and his journey notes. His highly religious and philosophical lifestyle was closely linked to his cultural beliefs. Because of those beliefs, he made a great impact on the wayhe wrote poems. Religion, philosophy and poetry are “three things that where almost one to Basho” (Gould Henderson 18-42). To him, poetry itself was a way of life, meant to express the feelings of what nature induced in the mind and body. It also meant to him “a search for religious truth… and this search led him to continuous development, giving his work a variety that can appeal to all typesof readers” (Harries 96). Matsuo Basho’s living and writing environment was very centered in nature. Most of his life was spent living and writing in the middle of the Japan wilderness. I think this is because Japanese culture is heavily influenced by nature and the enviroment. Most of his poems are about nature and most of his best works were written while being secluded in the jungletalking about his journeys and pilgrimages in his later years.

During Basho’s lifetime, the most influential and noticeable literary movement was poetry in the form of Haiku (he also wrote prose). As P.T. Harries said in his critical essay, “Haiku was born from another poetic style called Renku, which is a long poem written by two poets taking turns to write. The Haiku, before its independencefrom the Renku, consisted of the first stanza of the Renku”. Haiku “describe[s] scenes without using words that directly convey their feelings about the things or events in the scene. By "feelings" I include both emotions and evaluations, that is, meaningful reactions” (Holmes 424). It was not until his last years of life when he started to write some of his greatest Haiku and was known as a...