Matsuo Basho and the poetics of scent
Article Abstract:
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) developed his own style of linked haikai based on the 'link by scent' ('nioi-zuke'), which connects verses by atmosphere or mood. Previously, verses had been connected by lexical links using verbal associations or by content links using narrative extensions. In Basho's poetics of scent, the linkage relies on more distant connotations, resembling the technique of montage in modern cinema and referring back to the 'distant links' used in classical waka. A similar aesthetic governed the juxtaposition of images in the 17-syllable hokku form, which became the modern haiku.
Publication Name: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
Subject: Regional focus/area studies
ISSN: 0073-0548
Year: 1992
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The collision of traditions in Saikaku's haikai
Article Abstract:
Ibara Saikaku in 1675 composed 'A Thousand Haikai Alone in a Single Day' as a requiem for his wife. Only five other elegies for wives survive from 17th-century Japan, and Saikaku's is unusual in its scale, intensity and speed. Apparently he hoped to influence the flight of his wife's soul shamanically through his poem. Saikaku's work shows the influence of oral tradition as well as the experimental technique of the Danrin school, which contrasts to the restrained, courtly style of classical poetry. Saikaku's work is notable for its long image flows and multiple voices.
Publication Name: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
Subject: Regional focus/area studies
ISSN: 0073-0548
Year: 1992
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Saikaku's haikai requiem: 'A Thousand Haikai Alone in a Single Day,' the first hundred verses
Article Abstract:
A translation of and commentary on the first 100 verses of Ibara Saikaku's 'A Thousand Haikai Alone in a Single Day' are presented. The translation is conservative, but attempts to approximate what Saikaku might have written in English. The comments are not intended to be complete; attention is drawn more to linkages between each verse and the previous one than to the verses as single entities, with emphasis on relations of period, genre, class, gender and personal style.
Publication Name: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
Subject: Regional focus/area studies
ISSN: 0073-0548
Year: 1992
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
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