Basho

Each poem of Matsuo Basho creates a visual image in the reader’s head when reading them. Haikai poets “pioneered a new style in writing prose essays … and they produced striking in paintings, which are as sparsely and poignantly sketched in ink as haikus are sketched in words” (Simon 321). The works in The Narrow Road to the Deep North were composed by Basho along his journey and inspired by the things which the poet witnessed and experience on his trip. The visual elements which inspired Basho are transferred to his works which evokes the reader’s envisioning of images; when reading the verses “Time even for the grass hut / to change owners— / house of dolls” (Basho 325), a mental image of a grass hut with dolls inside of it emerged.

Basho was inspired by nature and objects which were visible and tangible to him. The emotion of the poet is never directly expressed in the works; they are reflected in the themes or motions that the poet selected to portray in his works. Basho’s grief for parting is shown after being able to stand in the shade of the exact willow which was the subject of the poem of a celebrated poet before his time as Basho wrote: “Whole field of / rice seedlings–I part / from the willow” (328). Basho was an expert in selecting the elements and objects from the view before him which convey his emotion and experience to the reader. Upon hearing the story of the “Mottling Rock,” the poet saw the villagers planting the rice seedlings, thus wrote: “Planting rice seedlings / the hands—in the distant past pressing / the grass of longing” (Basho 326).

Works Cited

Matsuo, Basho. The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Trans. Haruo Shirane. 1650 to the Present. Ed. Peter Simon. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 324-36. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Martin Puchner, gen. ed. 2 vols.

Simon, Peter, ed. 1650 to the Present. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Martin Puchner, gen. ed. 2 vols.