“on a folding screen” – Bashō

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on a folding screen
a mountain is painted:
winter seclusion
~Matsuo Bashō
(translated by David Landis Barnhill)

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Matsuo Bashō

Matsuo Bashō was born Matsuo Kinsaku in 1644 near Kyoto, Japan. He developed an interest in literature at a young age and eventually moved to Kyoto to study Chinese poetry, Taoism, and haikai no renga under the distinguished poet Kigin. During this time, he published his work “under several names, including Tosei, or ‘Green Peach,’ out of respect for the Chinese poet Li Po, whose name translates to ‘White Plum.'”⁽¹⁾

Around the age of 20, he relocated to Edo (modern-day Tokyo), where he became a recognized poet and teacher within the local literary community. In 1680, his students built him a rustic hut in Fukagawa, Japan, and gifted him a bashō (banana) tree. After that he adopted his new name: Bashō.

Starting around 1682, Bashō began to go on long journeys by foot. These travels provided the source material for a new poetic form called haibun. Haibun intersperses prose fragments with haiku to create a travelogue.. His most famous haibun, Oku no Hosomichi, or The Narrow Road to the Deep North, chronicles a 1,200-mile, five-month journey that began in May 1689.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North was first published in 1702, eight years after Bashō’s death in 1694.

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The Kigo

Central to haiku is the kigo, or “season word“. Beyond just naming a season, the kigo can “conjure up many allusions, historical references, spiritual meanings, and/or cultural traditions.”⁽²⁾ When used in a haiku, it is “especially effective because of this power to expand its meaning beyond the literal and to create a larger aura of seasonal mood, historical/literary context, and/or cultural implications.”⁽³⁾ An example of this is the “cherry blossom”. Cherry blossoms not only indicate spring, but they also suggests fleeting beauty and mortality.

In Basho’s haiku “on a folding screen”, winter seclusion is the kigo. Winter seclusion is classified as a season word under the “Winter—Humanities” category in The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words as selected by Kenkichi Yamamoto. 

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References:

1. Poetry Foundation: Basho (1644-1694)  
2. “What’s A Kigo?”: The Yuki Teikei Haiku Society 
3. New to Haiku: What is a Kigo?; Haiku Foundation

Basho’s haiku was retrieved from “Matsuo Bashō’s haiku poems in romanized Japanese with English translations” Editor: Gábor Terebess