Matsuo Bashō

Place: Ueno

Born: 1644

Death: 1694

Biography:

Matsuo Bashō was a renowned Japanese haiku poet born in 1644 in Ueno, Japan. He is widely recognized as one of the four great masters of haiku, alongside Kobayashi Issa, Masaoka Shiki, and Kawahigashi Hekigoto. Bashō's poetry is internationally renowned, and, in Japan, many of his poems are reproduced on monuments and traditional sites. Although Bashō is famous in the West for his hokku, he himself believed his best work lay in leading and participating in renku. As he himself said, 'Many of my followers can write hokku as well as I can. Where I show who I really am is in linking haikai verses.' Bashō was introduced to poetry at a young age, and after integrating himself into the intellectual scene of Edo (modern Tokyo) he quickly became well known throughout Japan. He made a living as a teacher; but then renounced the social, urban life of the literary circles and was inclined to wander throughout the country, heading west, east, and far into the northern wilderness to gain inspiration for his writing. His poems were influenced by his firsthand experience of the world around him, often encapsulating the feeling of a scene in a few simple elements.