For more information about terms and proper names highlighted in bold, see Glossary of Terms and Glossary of Poets.
538–710 Asuka period.
538–52 Buddhism introduced into Yamato, an assemblage of semi-autonomous states (eventually becoming Japan) with diverse pantheistic folk beliefs collectively called Shinto.
710–94 Nara period.
c.711 Earliest extant Japanese text, Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters), using Chinese graphs to represent the Japanese spoken language, lays out a Shinto world view. Contains first example of a linked exchange in Japanese poetry.
794–1185 Heian period.
late eighth century Earliest extant collection of Japanese poetry, Man’yōshū (Myriad Leaves Collection), containing over four thousand verses, predominantly tanka (short poems of thirty-one syllabets) that would come to epitomize waka (Japanese poetry) and therefore sometimes go by that name. Also contains other poetic forms, such as chōka (long poems of variable length culminating in one or more 31-syllabet stanzas) and, significantly, the first ‘simple linked-verse’ (tan renga) exchange of seventeen-syllabet and fourteen-syllabet verses.
c.880–950 Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise). Collection of short prose stories of uncertain authorship, arguably built around short poems (tanka), adding up to a larger narrative about the romances and exile of the real-life courtier and poet Ariwara no Narihira (825–80). Many episodes contain witty poetic exchanges between Narihira and his copious lovers.
c.920 First imperially commissioned collection of Japanese poetry, Kokin wakashū (Collection of Japanese Verse Old and New), aka Kokinshū. Written in Japanese syllabary (kana) as well as graphs. One of its prefaces, by Ki no Tsurayuki (872–945), is one of the earliest sustained statements of Japanese poetics (though somewhat inspired by Chinese sources). The collection contains examples of sequences of one hundred linked verses (hyakuin renga) in alternating stanzas of seventeen and fourteen syllabets. It also introduced the term haikai to refer to approximately five dozen verses that amusingly deviated from the conventions and diction of Japanese poetry (but otherwise did not resemble witty linked verse as it would come to be normalized).
c.1000 Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji), primarily by Murasaki Shikibu (c.978–1025). Widely regarded as the greatest tale (monogatari) of premodern Japanese literature and the world’s first major ‘novel’ of psychological complexity. Its fifty-four chapters also feature poetic exchanges between the fictional Prince Genji (based loosely on Narihira) and others, particularly his numerous lovers.
1157 Fukurozōshi (Commonplace Book), by Fujiwara no Kiyosuke (1104–77). Ruled that the hokku (initiating stanza) in chains of linked verse (kusari renga) be treated as a special case, composed with greater care than the other impromptu stanzas, and stand as a complete utterance unto itself, at least momentarily, until the next stanza reinterprets it.
1175 Amidism, aka Pure Land (Jōdo) Buddhism, introduced into Japan.
1180–85 Genpei War between the Taira and Minamoto families heralding the disintegration of the aristocratic court and the rise of the warrior class. Chronicled in the epic war tale Heike monogatari (Tales of the Heike), compiled in or around the thirteenth century.
1190 Death of Saigyō (b. 1118), major tanka poet whose poetic travels would inspire Bashō five centuries later.
1185–1600 Medieval period.
1191 Zen introduced into Japan.
1192 Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147–99, r. 1192–9) becomes first shogun, or supreme military ruler of the realm, establishing the seat of the shogunate at Kamakura.
1205 Shin kokin wakashū (New Collection of Japanese Verse Old and New), aka Shin kokinshū. Commissioned by retired emperor Go-Toba (r. 1183–98) and compiled by Fujiwara Teika (1162–1241) and others. The principles of association and progression used to link together unrelated stanzas within this collection helped solidify the rules (shikimoku) of the emerging poetic form of ‘serious minded’ (ushin) linked verse (renga) – as opposed to the ‘playful minded’ (mushin) linked verse that would eventually culminate in witty linked verses (haikai no renga).
1338–1573 Muromachi period established after the court splits into Northern and Southern factions in 1336, eventually reuniting in 1392.
1356 Early poetry collection containing sections devoted solely to the hokku (initiating stanza) of linked-verse sequences, Tsukubashū (Tsukuba Collection), edited by Nijō Yoshimoto (1320–88).
1465–1600 Warring States (Sengoku) period of internecine warfare among warlords (daimyō) of the various provinces.
1486 Early collection containing only initiating stanzas, Renga hokku, edited by Sanjō Nishi Sanetaka (1455–1537).
1495 Sōgi edits the renga anthology Shinsen tsukubashū (New Linked-Verse Collection), containing sections of hokku treated as verses in their own right.
1499 Extant early collection of witty linked verse (haikai no renga), Chikuba kyōginshū (Hobby Horse Collection of Madcap Verse), edited anonymously. Includes 217 reply verses (tsukeku) and 20 hokku.
c.1530 Early major collection of witty linked verse, Inu tsukubashū. Contains overtly humorous, scatological and even sexual verses of the sort that would come to be termed senryū and bareku. The collection would prove to be widely influential, inspiring the development of Danrin School poetry.
1542 Portuguese land on Japan’s major western island of Kyūshū. Jesuits introduce Christianity, subsequently banned.
1573–1603 Azuchi-Momoyama period. Unification of Japan initiated by warlord Oda Nobunaga (1534–82), continued by warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–98) and concluded by Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616). Hideyoshi credited with the institutionalization of the four major classes (shinō kōshō) of samurai, landowning farmers, artisans and merchants – though there were also untouchables (burakumin) and so-called non-humans (hinin). Hideyoshi launches failed invasions of Korea.
1600–1868 Edo or Tokugawa period.
1600 Ieyasu wins the battle of Sekigahara, unifying the country after centuries of internecine warfare.
1603 Ieyasu becomes first of the Tokugawa shoguns who for over 260 years would rule the approximately 260 semi-sovereign domains (han), ostensibly on behalf of the imperial line. Establishes the seat of the shogunate in a remote swamp town called Edo that would rapidly emerge as the major metropolis (although the imperial capital remained in Kyōto, anglicized as ‘Kyoto’, which had been the seat of cultural and political power for much of the preceding millennium).
1623 Commercial woodblock-printing industry established in Kamigata, resulting in a profusion of mass-published works and a dramatic rise in literacy rates.
1633 Enokoshū, major haikai repository, compiled.
1634–41 As part of a policy of self-imposed national isolationism (sakoku), third Tokugawa shogun Iemitsu (1604–51, r. 1623–51) in 1634 orders the construction of Dejima, a manmade islet in the bay of Nagasaki meant to contain Westerners residing in Japan. Portuguese initially inhabit the islet but are expelled after a massive uprising of Christian Japanese in the Shimabara Rebellion (1637–8). By 1641 the only Westerners allowed to remain in Japan, members of the Dutch East India Company, move in.
1651 Teimon (literally ‘Tei[toku]’s Gate’) School of haikai established when Teitoku lays out his compositional principles in Haikai gosan (Witty Linked-Verse Parasol).
1660s Establishment of the Danrin School of haikai of Sōin and followers, most notably Saikaku.
1663 Early appearance of the term haiku as an abbreviation of haikai no renga no ku, meaning any verse or verses (ku) in a witty (haikai) linked-verse (renga) sequence. Used only rarely until the late nineteenth century, when it began to acquire the present sense of a standalone verse of modern haiku.
1673 Early handbook of haikai composition, Umoregi (The Buried Log), by Teimon School poet Kigin, relates haikai to waka.
1680 Poet Tōsei, who had studied haikai in both the Teimon and Danrin schools, moves to a hut on the outskirts of Edo, where he adopts the new haikai pen name (haigō) Bashō after receiving a ‘leafy plantain’ (bashō) as a gift.
1689 Bashō meanders from Edo to Kyoto, chronicling his experiences in what would be published as a quasi-fictionalized haikuesque travel account, Oku no hosomichi, hailed as his masterwork.
1690s Establishment of the Bashō School (Shōmon) of the haikai of Bashō and followers.
1690 Foundational collection of haiku verse capping (maekuzuke), Futaba no matsu, edited by Fukaku, helps popularize haiku widely, even nationally, among people not formally affiliated with any haiku school. Composition of the haiku sequence ‘Akuoke no no maki’ (The Washbasin Sequence) by Bashō and others (see here).
1691 Publication of Waka midori, earliest work of haiku verse capping to regularly use a ‘repeating challenge’ verse (jōgo), and Sarumino, a central text of the Shōmon, that includes ‘Akuoke no no maki’.
1692 Kuzu no matsubara, account of the composition of Bashō’s ‘old pond’ verse (see here).
1694 Bashō dies. Succession dispute among disciples leads to the factionalization and eventual disintegration of the Shōmon.
1750 Publication begins of Mutamagawa, containing overtly comic haiku in both seventeen syllabets, that would come to be called senryū, and fourteen syllabets.
1765 Publication begins of Yanagidaru, presenting seventeen-syllabet verses selected by Senryū that would later be termed senryū. Although earlier such collections existed (e.g. Mutamagawa), this was probably the first major collection of senryū – and of any free-standing haiku – to reach a nationwide audience in its own day.
1766 Bashō Revival (Shōfū kaiki) launched by Buson, Chora and others.
1776–1801 Publication of Suetsumuhana, a collection of senryū and bareku.
1787–93 Series of economic and cultural edicts, collectively known as the Kansei Reforms (Kansei kaikaku), exhort samurai to devote themselves to the martial and literary arts (bunbu), especially waka, rather than yielding to the vices of theatres, gambling, whoring and haiku.
1796–7 Publication of Yanagidaru shūi, containing senryū gathered from verse-capping contests.
1800 The shogun’s capital, Edo, with approximately one million inhabitants, reaches parity with Paris and London as one of the world’s three largest metropolitan centres.
1835 Publication of the seminal collection Yanagi no hazue, consisting entirely of bareku.
1853 Commodore Matthew Perry (1794–1858) and his heavily armed black ships steam into Uraga Harbour near Edo, eventually forcing the limited opening of Japan to the West, effectively ending the policy of self-imposed national isolationism.
1868–1912 Meiji period.
1868 Meiji Restoration (Meiji ishin), customarily taken as initiating Japan’s modern period. Overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate and reinstatement of imperial rule, beginning with Emperor Meiji (1852–1912). Edo renamed Tōkyō (Eastern capital), anglicized as ‘Tokyo’.
1873 Japanese adopt the Western Gregorian calendar, effective from 1 January.
1879 Bashō deified on the recommendation of the government’s Ministry of Religious Instruction (Kyōbunshō).
1885 Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859–1935) publishes Shōsetsu shinzui (Essence of the Novel). He argues that, in order to modernize, Japan must abandon its disreputable literary entertainments, particularly the comic literature (gesaku) that was the prose counterpart to haiku. The Meiji government officially recognizes the Furuike kyōkai (Old Pond Church) as part of the Bashō sect of Shinto.
1893 D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966), who would become one of the major early popularizers of Zen Buddhism in the West, serves as interpreter at the Japanese Pavilion at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
1894 Poet and literary modernizer Shiki, in an essay ‘Zatsu no haiku’ (Miscellaneous Haiku) within the journal Shōnippon, uses the term ‘haiku’ in the modern sense of a standalone verse by an individual poet.
1894–5 Sino-Japanese War.
1904–5 Russo-Japanese War.
1912–26 Taishō period.
1912 Death of Emperor Meiji and ascension of Emperor Taishō (1879–1926).
1913 Kyoshi consolidates the association of the modern haiku with the hokku in his article ‘Sate haiku (hokku) to iu mono wa donna mono deshō’ (Well, What Sort of Thing is the Haiku (Hokku), Anyway?), published in the influential literary journal Hototogisu. Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), who translated haiku into Bengali, becomes the first non-Westerner to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1931 Empire of Japan invades Manchuria and by 1937 is at war with the Republic of China.
1941 Empire of Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and other American military instillations and British colonies, launching the Pacific theatre of the Second World War.
1945 United States drops a uranium bomb on Hiroshima and a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, forcing the Empire of Japan to surrender. Women in Japan granted the right to vote.