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, show more 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. show less

Pretty accurate translations of the widely temporally spaced source material. A lot of emphasis on Buddhist tales and less on the spirits I'd hoped for.

Very helpful.

Reviewed in Blithe Spirit 8/4 Dec 1998