Bücher von Matsuo Basho

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.

Die drei herausragenden Beispiele der ostasiatischen Literatur in diesem Band beschwören die über Jahrhunderte hinwegungebrochene Faszination des Lebens in einer einfachen Hütte in der Natur. Der Tang-Dichter Bai Juyi (618-907), derbuddhistische Laienmönch Kamo no Chômei (1153-1216) und der Haiku-Klassiker Matsuo Bashô (1644-1694) - sie alle zogen sich zeitweise oder auf Dauer in einfachste Behausungen in der Natur zurück, unternahmen eine Art Daseinsexperiment und prägten mit ihren Aufzeichnungen aus der Grashütte das ästhetische und spirituelle Ideal des einfachen Lebens in Abgeschiedenheit.Nach der Rückkehr von seiner großen Wanderung in die nördlichen Provinzen kehrte Bashô in die »Klause der Illusionen«(Genjûan) am Biwasee ein. Sein Leben dort beschrieb er in der neu konzipierten literarischen Form des Haibun, der Kunstprosa im Geiste des Haiku. Diese »Klause der Illusionen« in der Tradition von Kamo no Chômei und Bai Juyi ist eine Metapher für die Unbeständigkeit des Seins.

Matsuo Basho (1644-94) is considered Japan's greatest haiku poet. Narrow Road to the Interior (Oku no Hosomichi) is his masterpiece. Ostensibly a chronological account of the poet's five-month journey in 1689 into the deep country north and west of the old capital, Edo, the work is in fact artful and carefully sculpted, rich in literary and Zen allusion and filled with great insights and vital rhythms. In Basho's Narrow Road: Spring and Autumn Passages, poet and translator Hiroaki Sato presents the complete work in English and examines the threads of history, geography, philosophy, and literature that are woven into Basho's exposition. He details in particular the extent to which Basho relied on the community of writers with whom he traveled and joined in linked verse (renga) poetry sessions, an example of which, A Farewell Gift to Sora, is included in this volume. In explaining how and why Basho made the literary choices he did, Sato shows how the poet was able to transform his passing observations into words that resonate across time and culture.