Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
into the castle service to be a companion to one of the lord's sons, whose name was Todo
Yoshitada.
Bashō seems to have shared Yoshitada's tutors, of whom one in particular had a great
dealofinfluenceuponhim.Thistutorreadtheolderliterature ofJapanwithhispupils,and
taught them to take part in the sort of poetry-writing that was in fashion at the time (the
composition of a 17-syllable verse, to be known later as haiku, and the adding to it of al-
ternateversesof14and17syllables, byagroupofpoetsgatheredtogetherinafestiveway
for the purpose). Yoshitada and his companion would also have studied the military arts
and the Chinese classics. In 1666 the young master died, and the shock of his death drove
Bashō to take up a wandering life. To do this he broke his feudal allegiance and became in
theory a fugitive, but he does not seem to have been harassed or pursued. This mode of life
lasted until about 1680. For some of this time, at least, he had been living in Edo, under
theprotectionofafellowdiscipleofhisoldpoetry-teacher;thismanatonetimefoundhim
what seems a very unlikely job in connection with some water-supply undertaking.
His reputation as a poet was growing all the time and collections of his works were be-
ing published. In Japan it had long been a tradition that a literary man could retire from the
world into a small hermitage, where his life would be spent in the contemplation of nature,
conversation with friends of like mind, and the recording of his thoughts. Bashō now had
the chance of living like this, for one of his patrons had an estate at Fukugawa, at the time
a country district to the east of Edo, and here he allowed Bashō to live in what had been
a watchman's hut in his grounds, and also provided him with food and clothing. Bashō's
friends helped him move in (not that this was very difficult, for he did not need more than
one or two pieces of furniture), and one of them presented him with a sort of decorative
banana tree, a bashō , to plant outside his hut.
TheybegantocallhishometheBananaHermitage,Bashō-an.Hencehebecameknown
as the “sage of the bashō , and took it as his name.
In this retreat his life was simple, with the minimum of material things, but great po-
etical and intellectual activity. There his pupils would gather, coming on foot, or perhaps
by boat, and they would write poetry together, discuss their verse, seek to improve their
work and to formulate their style. They would augment his patron's rations by the gifts
theybrought,justasstudentsofthetraditionalartseventodaybringtheirpresents,anddis-
guisetheirfeesindecorativewrappings.Bashōtoo,inhisturn,madetheroundsofhisown
teachers, forChinese-style poetry,forpainting (amutual effort,this,forhispainting-teach-
er was one of his poetry-pupils), and above all for Zen Buddhism.
During the last ten years of his life, in imitation of Chinese and Japanese poets of the
past, he went on a series of journeys round Japan taking the opportunity to visit his family
in Iga on more than one occasion ( 69 ) . For those journeys he dressed as a Buddhist priest,
partly perhaps for the practical purpose of passing the barriers without being questioned,
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