Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics

MODERN HAIKU DERIVES from the seventeen-syllable hokku, or opening verse, of haikai, or comic linked verse. In the early Edo period, when Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) began his career as a haikai poet, the seventeen-syllable hokku was regarded primarily as the beginning of a linked verse (renga) sequence, which usually consisted of thirty-six or a hundred links (5/7/5, 7/7, 5/7/5, 7/7, etc.) composed alternately by one or more poets. Bashō considered himself to be, first and foremost, a comic linked verse poet and made a profession as a haikai teacher, but he often composed independent hokku—commonly referred to by modern readers as haiku—for which he is primarily known today and which lie at the heart of his prose narratives.

In a linked-verse session, the author of the hokku was required to include a kigo, a seasonal word, which functioned as a greeting to the gathered poets and established a special line of communication between the poet and the audience—a pipeline that proved crucial to the independent hokku. In the course of poetic history, the seasonal words used in classical poetry (the thirty-one syllable waka and later orthodox linked verse, or renga) had come to embody particular emotions, moods, and images. Thus, the word “spring rain” (harusame), which always meant a soft, steady drizzle, brought sweet thoughts; the long, oppressive “summer rain” (samidare) meant depression; and the cold and sporadic “early winter showers” (shigure) became associated with the uncertainty and impermanence of life. The importance of seasonal words in the hokku is evident in the following poems from the beginning and end of Bashō’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no hosomichi).

The two respective seasonal words, “the passing of spring” (yuku haru) and “the passing of autumn” (yuku aki), indicate more than the temporal dimensions of the poems; in the classical tradition they are strongly associated with the sorrow of separation, particularly that caused by a journey. In the first poem, nature at large—here represented by a bird and a fish—reveals its sorrow at the departure of spring. Through the connotations of the seasonal word, the same poem also expresses Bashō’s sorrow at leaving behind his friends. In the last poem, the departure of autumn (and implicitly that of Bashō) becomes as difficult and painful as prying apart the shells of a clam.¹ On the surface, the two poems appear to depict only nature, but the seasonal words, coupled with the larger context, underscore a recurrent theme of The Narrow Road to the Deep North: the sorrow of the eternal traveler.

Haikai deliberately employs contemporary language and subject matter, which classical poetry (the thirty-one syllable waka) was forbidden to use. Haikai is also informed by a sense of the comic, which usually derives from humorous subject matter, verbal play, or parody of traditional poetry and literature. Ichū, a haikai theorist of the Danrin school, once stated that “a poem that draws on the literary tradition and at the same time parodies it is haikai.” The same is true of much of Bashō’s poetry, though in a more subtle manner than in earlier haikai. A good example is Bashō’s famous frog poem, which marks the beginning of his mature poetry, of the so-called Bashō style.

Kawazu (“frog”), a seasonal word for spring, was a popular poetic topic, appearing as early as the Manyōshū (mid-eighth century). The following waka appears in a section on frogs (vol. 10, no. 2161–2165).

By the Heian period (the late eighth to the late twelfth century), the kawazu became almost exclusively associated with the blossoms of the yamabuki (kerria), the bright yellow mountain rose, and with limpid mountain streams, as in the following poem from Kokinshū (early ninth century).

In medieval poetry, the poet was often required to compose on the poetic essence (hon’i) of a given topic, which, in the case of the kawazu, became its beautiful voice. In a fashion typical of haikai, or comic linked verse, Bashō’s poem on the frog works against these traditional associations. In place of the plaintive voice of the frog singing in the rapids or calling out for his lover, Bashō gives us the plop of the frog jumping into the water. And instead of the elegant image of a frog in a fresh mountain stream beneath the bright yellow rose, the hokku presents a stagnant pond. According to Kuzu no Matsubara (1692), one of Bashō’s disciples suggested that the first line be “A yellow rose—” (yamabuki ya), an image that would have remained within the associative bounds of traditional poetry. Bashō’s version, by contrast, provides a surprising and witty twist on the classical perception of frogs.

This is not to say that Bashō rejects the seasonal association of the frog with spring. The kawazu appears in spring, summer, and autumn, but in the seasonal handbooks used by both Bashō and his readers, the frog is listed in the category of mid-spring, along with other insects and reptiles that emerge then from underground hibernation. As a seasonal word, the frog thus deepens the contrast or tension between the first half of the poem, the image of an old pond—the atmosphere of long silence and rest—and the second part, a moment in spring, when life and vitality have suddenly (with a surprising plop) returned to the world.

In Bashō’s time, the seasonal words in haikai formed a vast pyramid, capped at the top by the key seasonal topics (kidai) of the classical tradition—the cherry blossoms (spring), the cuckoo (summer), the moon (autumn), and the snow (winter)—which remained the most popular topics even for early Edo haikai poets. Spreading out from this narrow peak were the other seasonal topics derived from classical poetry. Occupying the bottom and the widest area were the kigo, which literally numbered in the thousands by Bashō’s day, used by haikai poets. In contrast to the seasonal topics at the peak, which were highly conventional and conceptual, those that formed the base were drawn from and directly reflected contemporary life. Unlike the elegant diction at the top of the pyramid, the new, ever-expanding words at the base were earthy, sometimes vulgar, and drawn from a variety of “tongues,” particularly those of popular Edo culture and society.

Bashō’s place in haikai history can be defined as an attempt to tread the “narrow road” between the complex and rigidly defined aesthetic order centered on traditional seasonal topics and a strongly antitraditional movement that sought to break out and explore new topics, subject matter, and poetic language. As the frog poem suggests, Bashō draws on the classical tradition not in order to return to it but to provide it with new life. Indeed, for those aware of the cluster of associations that have accumulated around the seasonal words, the beauty of Bashō’s poetry often lies, as it does in the frog poem, in the subtle and ironic tension between the traditional associations and the new presentation.

It has often been noted that the effect of the frog poem derives from the intersection of the momentary and the eternal, of movement and stillness. The two parts of the poem, divided by the cutting word, interpenetrate, the sound of the frog accentuating the stillness of the ancient pond and the quiet atmosphere highlighting the momentary. A similar effect can be found in the following poem in The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

In this summer poem, the cries of the cicada, which seem to sink into the surrounding rocks, deepen the profound feeling of silence. According to one modern commentator, the spirit of the speaker becomes one with the voice of the cicada and penetrates the rocks, arriving at a deep, inner silence.³ In a number of hokku written by Bashō at this time, a small, vulnerable, or fragile creature—a cicada, a frog, a cricket, etc.—is cast against a temporally or spatially unbounded setting, creating a feeling of “loneliness” (sabishisa), a poignant and tender mood that is savored and appreciated for the inner peace and quiet communion it brings with nature.⁴

Shikō, one of Bashō’s foremost disciples, once noted that “loneliness and humor are the essential style of haikai.” “Humor is the name of haikai, and loneliness the essence of its poetry” (Zokugoron) . Bashō referred to this unique combination as sabi, which is to be distinguished from sabishisa (“loneliness”), a medieval poetic and aesthetic ideal that represents only part of sabi. Kyorai, another of Bashō’s prominent disciples, reminds us of the distinction between the two: “Sabi is the complexion of a verse. It does not mean a tranquil and lonely verse. Sabi exists in both lively and quiet verses” (Kyoraishō). As the word haikai, which literally means “comic,” suggests, haikai was originally comic verse. In early Edo haikai, the comic element derived almost entirely from the parody of classical poetry (waka and orthodox linked verse), from the playful destruction of the aesthetic world created by classical tradition. Many of Bashō’s earlier poems are in fact amusing and clever displays of wit that make light of the conventions of classical poetry. However, Matsuo Bashō’s mature poetry, which begins from the period of the frog poem, transformed haikai into a serious form that embraced larger human and worldly concerns even as it retained its comic roots. The haikai, or comic, element in Bashō’s mature poems usually derives from a sense of “newness” (atarashimi) or the unexpected, which brings a smile rather than the laughter typical of earlier haikai. In the frog poem, it is the unexpected, sudden plop of the frog that provides the comic overtone.⁵ The solemn opening line, “An ancient pond—” (furuike ya), however, tempers and internalizes this comic aspect, making it part of a highly meditative poem. This ironical movement or tension, which is both serious and light, profound and minor, is sabi, a hallmark of Bashō’s mature style.

Bashō and his disciples speak broadly of two fundamental kinds of hokku: the “single-topic” (ichimotsu shitate) hokku and the “combination” (toriawase) hokku. The “single-topic” hokku treats only one subject, as in the following examples by Bashō.

The “combination” (toriawase), by contrast, combines two or more different images into one hokku. Bashō’s disciples further divided the “combination” into two types: those “outside the circumference,” which bring together two (and sometimes more) images that traditionally have not been found together, and those “inside the circumference,” which combine images that have been associated with each other in the classical tradition. Bashō once said that “combinations that emerge from within the circumference are rarely superior, and all of them are old-fashioned” (Udanohōshi). As we have seen, in classical poetry the frog was usually combined with fresh water and the yellow rose (yamabuki) to form an elegant and bright image. Bashō’s poem effectively goes outside that circumference, but had Bashō used “A yellow rose—” (Yamabuki ya) instead of “An ancient pond—,” as one of his disciples suggested, he would have stayed within the circumference.

Sometimes a “combination” of distant, extracircumference images is held together by an intermediary image, as in the following poem by Bashō.

The gap between the two elements of the “combination,” the “willow” (aoyagi) and “low tide” (shiohi), two classical images never associated in the poetic tradition, is bridged by the earthy, nonclassical image of “mud” (doro) . The haikai, or comic, element derives from the vernal, feminine image of the elegant willow, admired for its gracefully drooping branches, being unexpectedly soiled by the mud on the bay bottom.

Bashō’s distant “combinations” are closely associated with the “fragrant links” (nioi-zuke) that he regarded as an aesthetic and literary ideal in haikai linked verse. The following example is from a thirty-six-link verse sequence in Sarumino (The Monkey’s Raincoat, 1691).

In the first verse, a priest has come back from a chilly day of begging for alms, and in the second verse a monkey trainer, fated to pass his days with a monkey, is juxtaposed to an autumn moon, an image of loneliness. The two scenes are completely unrelated to each other on both the referential and rhetorical levels, yet they are linked by a common mood, by the solitary and humble sadness of two individuals who stand outside the warm embrace of society. The second verse (by Bashō) probes the chilly atmosphere and loneliness of the previous verse (by Bonchō) even as it stands at a distance. To use haikai terminology, the new verse “lets go” (tsukihanasu) of the previous verse even as it catches its “fragrance” (nioi).

The same kind of “fragrant” link can be found within the confines of a single hokku, as in the following verse by Bashō.

The chrysanthemum, which blooms amidst the bright colors and leaves of autumn, possesses an old-fashioned but refined fragrance. The dignified and elegant statues of the Buddha that fill the temples in the old capital of Nara have no overt connection to the scent of chrysanthemums—the statues are not surrounded by flowers—yet the overtones of the two parts overlap: both possess an antique, elegant atmosphere that is at once familiar.

The “distant combination” can take the form of a question and an answer, one of the formats from which Japanese linked verse first arose. The following poem was written shortly after Bashō fell ill on a journey.

According to one of Bashō’s disciples, the speaker, hampered by the vicissitudes of old age, looks enviously at the bird in the floating clouds, symbolic of eternal travel. The bird in the clouds also reflects the speaker’s loneliness. Whatever connection one finally decides to draw, the reader must leap from one mode or state to another (in this instance, from a subjective, lyrical statement to an objective description).

The “combinations” found in Bashō’s hokku do not usually employ simile or metaphor proper, in which a direct transference is made between one image and another. Instead, Bashō relies on selective juxtaposition, in which the connections are only suggested. The hokku usually juxtaposes either two antithetical items or two similar elements. In either case, the combination is usually unexpected and “new”—that is to say, it works against traditional associations, shedding new light on both sides of the “combination” and often joining a classical topic with a nonclassical image or phrase.

The notion of “fragrance” (nioi) also applies to the relationship between Bashō’s prose and the embedded poetry. Like the two parts of the hokku, the poem and the surrounding prose often highlight each other even as they can be read and appreciated independently. The linking by “fragrance,” or overlapping overtones, also occurs between poetry and painting. Instead of the poem simply reflecting the content of the painting or sketch on which it appears, we often find the two juxtaposed, creating a montage effect, in which the poetry and the painting are joined only by “fragrance.”

The toriawase (combination) is usually made possible by the “cutting word” (kireji), one of the formal requirements of the hokku, which severs the semantic, grammatical, or rhythmic flow of the poem. The “cutting word” frequently takes the form of the exclamatory particle ya at the end of the first or second line or the exclamatory particle kana at the end of the poem.⁶ According to Bashō, any of the seventeen syllables of the hokku can function as a “cutting word” as long as it “severs” the poem. In the frog poem, the ya (translated by a dash) at the end of the first line splits the poem into two parts, causing the two halves to reverberate against each other. In typical Bashō fashion, the “cutting word” sets up an opposition or parallel between a visual image and an auditory sensation.

The “cutting word,” like the seasonal word, vastly increases the complexity and power of the seventeen-syllable hokku, which is commonly recognized as the shortest poetic form in world literature. The cutting word, however, can only be effective if the recipient makes it so. In linked verse, the hokku, or opening verse, was followed by a second verse that drew on or emerged out of the overtones of the first verse. In the independent hokku (that is, the haiku), the reader must perform the same task in his or her imagination. To “cut” a verse is to entrust the final meaning to the reader, to allow the audience to participate actively, an aesthetic process similar to the cadenza in pre-Romantic music, in which the composer leaves part of the musical notation blank for the performer. It is no accident that Matsuo Bashō once said, “those verses that reveal 70 or 80 percent of the subject are good. Those that reveal 50 to 60 percent, we never tire of.”

Many of the literary characteristics of Bashō’s hokku are also to be found in his literary travel journals, where much of his best poetry appears. In addition to hundreds of haibun (poetic prose) vignettes and essays, Bashō wrote a series of more extended works (all available in English translation), Nozarashi kikō (Record of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton), Kashima mōde (A Visit to Kashima Shrine), Oi no kobumi (Record of a Travel-Worn Satchel), Sarashina kikō (A Visit to Sarashina Village), Oku no hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North), and Saga nikki (The Saga Diary), all of which are based on journeys to various parts of Japan. Most of these journeys, particularly the one that led to The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Bashō’s masterpiece, involve a search for or visit to utamakura, famous places in Japanese poetry.

Like seasonal words, utamakura (“poetic places”) were aesthetic clusters, which, as a result of their appearance in famous poems, possessed rich overtones. When used in a poem (or, as Bashō often did, in prose), the established associations radiated out from the hokku, providing depth to the seventeen-syllable verse. From as early as the classical period, utamakura became popular topics for classical poetry, and like seasonal topics, they assumed fixed associations that the waka poet was required to employ. Relying on poetry handbooks, classical poets could easily write about places that they had never seen, just as they composed about aspects of nature that they had never encountered. Bashō broke from this tradition, and in a manner that deliberately recalled certain poet-priests of the classical and medieval past—Nōin, Saigyō, and Sōgi—he journeyed to numerous utamakura, where the present met, sometimes in ironic and violent disjunction, with the literary past. If, for most classical poets, the utamakura represented a beauty that transcended time and place, Bashō’s travels brought him face to face with the impermanence of all things. This tension between the unchanging and the changing, between literary tradition and intense personal experience, and between classical diction and the contemporary language lies at the heart of both Bashō’s prose and poetry.

The following is from Record of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton.

Coming upon the guard post at Fuwa (which literally means “Unbreakable”), the speaker in Bashō’s poem finds that even the building has disappeared, leaving only thickets and open fields swept by autumn winds. The hokku follows the “poetic essence” (hon’i) of Fuwa Barrier (the pathos of decay) as well as that of the “autumn wind” (loneliness). But these classical associations, which are embodied in Yoshitune’s waka, are re-presented in a new and striking manner, using nonclassical diction: “nothing but thickets and fields,” a phrase that subtly contrasts the present with the poetic past.

Bashō repeatedly told his disciples that they “should awaken to the high and return to the low” (takaku kokoro o satorite, zoku ni kaerubeshi) . Matsunaga Teitoku, the founder of Edo haikai, defined haikai as linked verse with haigon, vocabulary that classical poetry had excluded as being vulgar and “low” (zoku) . The use of haigon (literally “haikai words”) transformed haikai into a highly popular form that could be enjoyed by all classes. At the same time, however, haikai’s poetic “liberation,” particularly the free use of haigon, threatened the literary life of haikai, making it more a form of amusement than a serious literary genre. Bashō was the first major poet to bring a heightened spiritual and literary awareness to haikai, to infuse the “high” (ga) into the “low” (zoku) of haikai, or rather, to seek the high in the low, a pursuit that ultimately transformed the hokku into a powerful poetic form. As the frog poem suggests, Bashō sought to find the new in the old, the high in the low, the profound in the trivial, the serious in the comic.

“Awakening to the high” also meant exploring and sharing in the spirit of the “ancients,” the superior poets of the past. The long and difficult journeys to utamakura were a means of communing with the spirits of the great poets of the past, of sharing in their poetic experience. For Bashō, the great figures were Li Bo, Hanshan, Du Fu, and Bo Zhuyi in the Chinese tradition and Saigyō, Sōgi, Rikyū, and Sesshū in the Japanese tradition—most of whom, significantly, had been recluse poets or artists. The work of these “ancients” was bound together, in Bashō’s mind, by a common literary spirit, in which the best of haikai should share. It was not enough, however, simply to imitate and borrow from the “ancients,” whose “high” (ga) art—particularly Chinese poetry, waka, and renga—had become, by Bashō’s day, aristocratic, refined, and exclusive. One must also—and here Bashō parts company with his medieval predecessors—return to the “low” (zoku), to the popular, to everyday life, to immediate personal experience, and to the language and “tongues” around us, all of which continue to change from day to day. It was only by “returning to the low” that one could create poetry with “newness” and lightness, which were critical to the life of haikai. For Bashō, it was ultimately the harshness of travel on foot, which combined the pursuit of utamakura with the vicissitudes of everyday life, that became the quintessential means of “awakening to the high and returning to the low” and that led to much of his finest poetry.

The poet, standing on the shores of Suma Bay, hears the sound of a hototogisu (cuckoo), and as he watches it fade into the distance, it suddenly becomes a small island, presumably Awajishima, a small island across from Suma. In contrast to the first two lines, which have the lyricism of waka, the last line possesses the element of haikai in the unexpected transfer between an aural and a visual image.

yuku haru ya tori naki uo no me wa namida	The passing of spring: Birds cry, and in the eyes Of the fish are tears.	(1689)

hamaguri no futami ni wakare yuku aki zo	A clam being parted From its shell at Futami— The passing of autumn.	(1689)

kegoromo ni	In fur robes,
tsutsumite nukushi	They are warmly wrapped—
kamo no ashi	The feet of the wild duck.	(1693)

bii to naku	Crying “Bee—,”
shirigoe kanashi	The sadness of the trailing voice.
yoru no shika	A deer at night.	(1694)

sō yaya samuku tera ni kaeru ka	A priest returning to a Temple as he grows cold?	(Bonchō)

saruhiki no saru to yo o furu aki no tsuki	A monkey trainer, Passing through life with a monkey— The moon of autumn.	(Bashō)