Haruo Shirane :: Matsuo
Bashô was a haikai master. "Haikai" means popular linked
verse.
Linked verse was this great socio-cultural activity that the Japanese
engaged in from the medieval period onward. It's different in Bashô's
period. Bashô is late seventeenth century, the beginning of the Tokugawa
period. It's a whole new society, an urban society, with the development
of capitalism, urban townsmen, and mercantilism, so we have a whole new commoner
populace that is now participating. It's not just the aristocrats or the
elite samurai.
What's interesting about the seventeenth century that marks it off from
the others is that it's the first time we have mass education; this is the
first time we have printing. Until this point everything was very carefully
duplicated by hand. This is the first time you had books, you had libraries,
you had schools. Everyone is trying to learn. And haikai — comic linked
verse — was kind of a way to learning, a way of learning. It was in
linked verse that you would allude to the Tale of Genji, to Ise,
the Kokinshû,
but you could also talk about your daily life, the things that happen in
your kitchen, talk about your dog. [The Tale of Genji, Tales of
Ise, and
the Kokinshû are famous works of literature and poetry from
Japan's classical period (6th-12th centuries).]
[Haiku by Bashô]
susuhaki wa
ono ga tana tsuru
daiku kana
housecleaning day —
hanging a shelf at his own home
a carpenter
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