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  • Published: 1 April 1986
  • ISBN: 9780141907772
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 96
Categories:

On Love and Barley

Haiku of Basho




Basho is one of the greatest Japanese poets and a master of haiku

Basho, one of the greatest of Japanese poets and the master of haiku, was also a Buddhist monk and a life-long traveller. His poems combine 'karumi', or lightness of touch, with the Zen ideal of oneness with creation. Each poem evokes the natural world - the cherry blossom, the leaping frog, the summer moon or the winter snow - suggesting the smallness of human life in comparison to the vastness and drama of nature. Basho himself enjoyed solitude and a life free from possessions, and his haiku are the work of an observant eye and a meditative mind, uncluttered by materialism and alive to the beauty of the world around him.

  • Published: 1 April 1986
  • ISBN: 9780141907772
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 96
Categories:

About the authors

Matsuo Basho

Matsuo Bashō (1644 – 1694), later known as Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa, was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan.