As in China, poetry in Japan has taught a view of life and, through union with nature, brought comfort and. elation to the soul. Poetry enhanced that unity of knowledge, that height of wisdom which is the main characteristic of Japanese and Chinese poetry; it tends to create a synthesis and to express and envisage life as a whole.
In Japan as well as in China, poetry has taken the role of religion: it purifies man's soul, brings him to feel the mystery and beauty of the universe, inspires him with tenderness and compassion for his fellow men and for the humble creatures of life.
In China and Japan, poetry in classic times was intimately linked with painting, expressing itself through calligraphy, the basis of Far Eastern aesthetics. Poetry gives Oriental painting (which follows predominantly the Chinese pattern) its inner projection and its spirit,
BASHO: HIS SYMBOLIC POETRY CONFRONTED WITH WESTERN SYMBOLISM
Basho Matsuo (1644-94), the greatest Japanese haiku poet, has widened the range of poetry, showing a vigorous reaction against the common use made in his time of haikai, which was generally practised by the uncultured merchant class. Haikai means "comic," "lighthearted," or "free," and was used in opposition to the serious form, waka, and the linked verse, renga. Basho widened and deepened the subjects for haiku and enlarged the philosophical aspect. His religious ideas were a combination of both the Tendai philosophy and the quiet naturalism of Taoism and Zen. As is typical of Japanese, Basho put his ideals into practice in his everyday life; born a samurai, he dressed as a Zen priest when he became a haiku master and led a simple, poor life. It was common at the time for a man to adopt the tonsure when he decided to become a writer or an artist; it meant that he had decided to devote his life to art. One of the greatest successors of Basho was Issa, who was also a modest man and led the life of a farmer.
Basho left a comparatively small poetic production. He wrote about two thousand verses, of which only one hundred, says Blyth, are really good. He wrote the best part of his work after he was forty. He used several pen names; the name Basho, which means banana tree, was taken from the tree in his hermitage at Fukagawa.
Basho is one of the greatest world poets. The Japanese love him with deep reverence. Japanese people deem the poet and the artist worthy of particular respect, like beings apart from general humanity. Basho was a true poet, a high idealist who devoted his life to the cult of poetry. But for him poetry did not merely mean verses or literature—for him poetry was the voice of the universe; the poet was the man who could, hear in his heart the beautiful harmonies of nature's voices.
Basho's haiku, being the highest exponent of Japanese poetry, show characteristic refined qualities. The qualities are present not in thought, but in emotion; not in eloquence, but in brief suggestion; not in abstract discourse, but in objective experience; not in detached contemplation of beauty, but in a strong feeling of reality and in the dissolution of self in nature. The attitude of humility necessary for the intimate approach to nature that brings the dissolution of the poet's personality is expressed in the titles of Basho's works: Minashi Guri (Empty Chestnut), published in 1683; Fuyu no Hi (A Winter Day), an anthology of haiku by Basho and his disciples, and the first of seven major anthologies; Kawazu Awase (Frog's Contest), Ham no Hi (Spring Day), Hisago (A Gourd), and Saru Mino (Straw Coat for Monkey).
For a Westerner to try to criticize Basho's poetry is somewhat of a heresy, and to pretend to understand it seems a despicable pretence. Therefore, two main attitudes have been followed by Western critics towards haiku: either to praise its delicate lyricism, its subtle sensibility to the beauty of nature—this is the honest approach; or to pretend that haiku can never be understood before one has mastered the whole culture of India, China, and Japan, in all their poetic, philosophical, and religious impenetrable thought—this is the approach of the savants. Both are of course facile and lack seriousness, because what is really needed here is to find a common ground where human understanding becomes possible, however strange the poet may be to the reader. It could also be said that to understand Dante it is indispensable to know all Greek and Roman literature and philosophy, theology, poetry, and all the thought of the European Middle Ages. Of not so great a poet C. M. Bowra has written that "Mallarme's poetry is more difficult than almost any other great poetry in the world. It requires for its appreciation a knowledge which it is almost impossible to obtain fully." When so much is demanded, ordinary man feels left outside the privileged circle of the rare initiated ones; then poetry becomes aimless and loses its human appeal.
A few examples of Basho's haiku may be better than any wrought explanation. Translated literally, some of them, in their power of concentration and richness of suggestion, are not far from some of the best modern poetry that we have today.
| Uguisu ya | A warbler |
| Take no ko-yabu ni | In the grove of bamboo shoots |
| Oi o naku | Growing old, sings. |
A world of dense suggestion is contained here in the idea of the new life springing from bamboo shoots, while an old bird is singing in its last days of joy. Another example:
| Shiraga nuku | White hairs are pulled out |
| Makura no shita ya | Ah, under the pillow |
| Kirigirisu | A cricket. |
The same feeling of melancholy is briefly sketched in this scene: while some tender hand is pulling out Basho's white hairs, a cricket is chirping under the pillow on which he rests his head. Still another example:
| Kami-gaki ya | Around the shrine a fence |
| Omoi mo kakezu | Unexpectedly |
| Nehan-zo | A statue of Buddha entering Nirvana, |
This haiku, composed at the Ise Shrine, expresses the union of Shintoism and Buddhism, so characteristic of Japanese religious eclecticism. It may be related to the doctrine of Ryobu Shinto, which arose at the beginning of the ninth century, preaching that Shinto gods were manifestations of Buddhist divinities. In the feeling of embracing the two religions, Basho rejoices. Consider:
| Te ni toraba | If I took it in my hand |
| Kien namida zo | It would melt with my hot tears |
| Atsuki aki no shimo | Autumn frost. |
The power of concentration in this haiku is so great that the most important element of it is not even put into words: Basho is talking of the white hair of his dead, mother which he saw on his return to his native place after a long absence.
These very imperfect translations, which follow the original as literally as possible, transmit, I hope, the true spirit of the haiku. We can see that they contain a very condensed poetic emotion, an extraordinary force of suggestion and purity of symbolism, as well as a beauty and freshness grasped directly from reality. Haiku is the most unique poetic form in the world; in no other country can anything similar be found.
A description of the way Basho composed his most famous poem, left by his disciple Shiko, may help us to penetrate a bit more into the mysteries of haiku. Every Japanese knows the poem by heart:
| Furuike ya | Ah, the old pond |
| Kawazu tobikomu | A frog jumps in |
| Mizu no oto | Sound, of water. |
