Bashō
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- Key People:
- Bashō
- Issa
- Kawahigashi Hekigotō
- Related Topics:
- Japanese literature
- senryu
- shōfū
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Top Questions
What is a haiku?
The haiku is a Japanese poetic form that consists of three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. The haiku developed from the hokku, the opening three lines of a longer poem known as a tanka. The haiku became a separate form of poetry in the 17th century.
What are haiku traditionally about?
Traditionally, writers of haiku have focused on expressing emotionally suggestive moments of insight into natural phenomena. This approach was solidified and popularized by the 17th-century poet Bashō, many of whose haiku reflected his own emotional state when communing with nature. After the 19th century, haiku subjects expanded beyond natural themes.
Which notable poets wrote haiku?
Influential haiku poets included Bashō, Buson, Issa, Masaoka Shiki, Takahama Kyoshi, and Kawahigashi Hekigotō. Bashō is usually credited as the most influential haiku poet and the writer who popularized the form in the 17th century. Outside Japan, Imagist writers such as Ezra Pound and T.E. Hulme wrote haiku in English.
When did the haiku become popular in the English-speaking world?
The haiku began gaining mainstream recognition outside Japan in the early 20th century. In the English-speaking world, the form was popularized by Imagists such as Ezra Pound and later by Beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg.
haiku, unrhymed poetic form consisting of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively. The haiku first emerged in Japanese literature during the 17th century, as a terse reaction to elaborate poetic traditions, though it did not become known by the name haiku until the 19th century.
The term haiku is derived from the first element of the word haikai (a humorous form of renga, or linked-verse poem) and the second element of the word hokku (the initial stanza of a renga). The hokku, which set the tone of a renga, had to mention in its three lines such subjects as the season, time of day, and the dominant features of the landscape, making it almost an independent poem. The hokku (often interchangeably called haikai) became known as the haiku late in the 19th century, when it was entirely divested of its original function of opening a sequence of verse. Today the term haiku is used to describe all poems that use the three-line 17-syllable structure, even the earlier hokku.
Britannica QuizThe Literary WorldOriginally, the haiku form was restricted in subject matter to an objective description of nature suggestive of one of the seasons, evoking a definite, though unstated, emotional response. The form gained distinction early in the Tokugawa period (1603–1867) when the great master Bashō elevated the hokku to a highly refined and conscious art. He began writing what was considered this “new style” of poetry in the 1670s, while he was in Edo (now Tokyo). Among his earliest haiku is
On a withered branch
A crow has alighted;
Nightfall in autumn.
Bashō subsequently traveled throughout Japan, and his experiences became the subject of his verse. His haiku were accessible to a wide cross section of Japanese society, and these poems’ broad appeal helped to establish the form as the most popular form in Japanese poetry.
After Bashō, and particularly after the haiku’s revitalization in the 19th century, its range of subjects expanded beyond nature. But the haiku remained an art of expressing much and suggesting more in the fewest possible words. Other outstanding haiku masters were Buson in the 18th century, Issa in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Masaoka Shiki in the later 19th century, and Takahama Kyoshi and Kawahigashi Hekigotō in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the turn of the 21st century there were said to be a million Japanese who composed haiku under the guidance of a teacher.
A poem written in the haiku form or a modification of it in a language other than Japanese is also called a haiku. In English the haiku composed by the Imagists were especially influential during the early 20th century. The form’s popularity beyond Japan expanded significantly after World War II, and today haiku are written in a wide range of languages.
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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.
