Haruo Shirane

This is a tremendous scholarly work covering the lifetime of Basho, his works, and the poetic theory underlying Basho's poetry. After reading this book, you will undoubtedly read Basho's poetry with a significantly greater depth, seeing poems serve many functions and having multiple levels of meaning. Shirane reinterprets and demystifies Basho from a very modern critical viewpoint. Basho is viewed less as an ascetic or as some kind of mythical priest, and much more as a poet in his times, with his own set of biases and his particular approach to marketing himself as a poet. Basho's writing techniques are covered in detail, including juxtaposition of images, the principal of lightness, the use of season words, and the combination of traditional influences with contemporary freshness.… (meer)