Basho's thoughts on...
Matsuo Basho 1644~1694
The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.
The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems
Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.
These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.
Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.
“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”
"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"
Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.
Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.
I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.
Quotations from Basho Prose
The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.
The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.
All the more joyful,
all the more caring
Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.
basho4humanity
@gmail.com
Plea for Affiliation
Plea For Affiliation
I pray for your help
in finding someone
- individual, university,
or foundation -
to take over my
3000 pages of material,
to cooperate with me
to edit the material,
to receive all royalties
from sales, to spread
Basho’s wisdom worldwide,
and preserve for
future generations.
basho4humanity
@gmail.com
Article Search
Searched for ' ' : 287 articles found
| 51 - 100 of 287 :
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
Lovers in Love
Here are twice as many love poems as in article C-1, enough poems to overwhelm you and drive out any notions you have of Basho being austere or detached or impersonal. Enjoy.
Basho did wr ...
▶ Love and Sex in Basho
C-02
The Beast with Two Backs
"I am one, sir, that comes to tell you,
your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs."
...
▶ Love and Sex in Basho
C-03
Men Like Sex
The days pile up
getting used to a woman who floats along
The grass of love weakens his arm for archery.
This samurai neglects his responsibilities to be with a play-woman ...
▶ Love and Sex in Basho
C-04
My Body has been Sold
Basho renku on “play-women” are crucial documents in the history of the struggle against male exploitation of woman's body. 100 years before Vindication of the Rights of Women, B ...
▶ Love and Sex in Basho
C-05
Play-Women from Niigata
Scholars have added their sexual and humorous fantasies to Basho's account of meeting two women at an inn. We instead consider the female reality of prostitution in Japan to honor the women. ...
▶ Love and Sex in Basho
C-06
The Poet of Children – 107 Poems
Of all the portraits of children and teens in world literature, the earliest and most numerous, diverse, and insightful are by Basho (not only haiku, but far more renku), although mostly unknown ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-07
Being a Baby – Commentaries for #s 1 - 20
These 20 studies of babyhood by Basho and co-poets are anthropology, records of the life and mind of babies in olden Japan , and also records of the feeling one Japanese man had for babies.
&nbs ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-08
Age 3 to 7
Verses about the "childness" between ages 3 and 7, with Japanese and Romanized, plus commentaries to help you "apply your heart to what children do" through Basho's words. &nbs ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-09
Age 7 to 12
Beginning with the transformation at age seven when Basho says the "face becomes clear," till the onset of puberty, kids discover the vastness of "what children do" in this world.
We begi ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-10
Teenagers
Teenagers, find ways to use these verses as resources to understand yourselves and other teens. Anthropologists, use them to expand your understanding of human growth.
71
Ove ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-11
Prose, Letters, and Spoken Word about Children
Here are ten kids Basho wrote about in haibun or letters: Kyokusui's son Takesuke, Uko's daughter Sai, an abandoned 2-year old, an 11 year old "Priest of the Road,"&nb ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-12
Journey with Grandnephew
Basho's haiku, renku, letters, and spoken word about Jirobei, his traveling companion on this final journey, about the two girls left home, and about children in general.&nb ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-13
Blessing unto Kasane
Basho's haibun and tanka blessing a newborn baby girl he was asked to name; in my opinion, the tanka, SPRING PASSES BY, is his masterpiece, and the greatest work in Japanese literature.
&nbs ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-14
Learning to Read with Basho
21 Basho haiku and 5 renku for beginning readers. Basho said, Have a three-foot child get the poem, so here are 28 Basho poems for first to third graders to “get.”
& ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-15
Abandoned Child
Basho's compassionate account of the abandoned child he met in 1684 has been misunderstood so the compassion is lost. In this article, I try to repair the damage done with a dose of reality. ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-16
Child and Teen Welfare
Basho's renku and letters tell of his lifelong concern for the well-being of children and teenagers; he paid attention to children of all ages, and recorded their circumstances and behavior. ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-17
Kids in Japanese Literature before Basho
My thesis that Basho is the Poet of Children -- rather than the poet of old men -- can only be sustained by comparison with the children portrayed by authors and poets before Basho. In artic ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-18
Kids in Western Literature until Shakespeare
My thesis that Basho is the Poet of Children -- rather than the poet of old men -- can only be sustained by comparison with the children portrayed by authors and poets before Basho. In ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-19
Visions of Childhood
The 17th century Japanese poet Basho paid attention to the young of our species and recorded their living activity in a hundred poems In his final year, three months before he died, he told ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-20
Teenage Girls
Several dozen poems about adolescent girls by the 17th century Japanese poet Basho have been ignored by scholars and not translated, so almost nobody knows they exist. A few of them are haiku, but mos ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-21
Rub It Out!
Rub It Out
Young Japanese today consider Basho “impersonal,” and “old-fashioned,” having no relevance to modern life, however here is a linked verse in which& ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-22
Child Neglect
The crying child’s
face is such a mess
Renting a roomthey make no fireto boil rice
The parents do not wipe the snot off their kid’s face, so germs produce skin infection and pu ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-23
Girls Only
Here is a stanza-pair of linked verse composed in 1694; Basho wrote the second stanza.
White cloth in the breezelark sings to the sky
Girls onlygoing to view blossomsrise in a flock
晒の ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-24
Introduction to What Children Do
100% of rights and royalties in perpetuity from the sale of this book are offered to an organization that helps children in need,in exchange for active promotion of book.
Let children know
what ...
▶ Children and Teens
C-25
Hope for Humanity
Basho’s messages of Hope have not been translated because scholars with limited knowledge of his works believe he was “impersonal, detached ... at times, cold-hearted, ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-01
Joy and Fun
To overcome the reputation Basho has been given for being "impersonal, detached" and "serious and humorless" here are 25 examples of joy and fun in Dear Uncle Basho.
Drunk on the shoulder ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-02
Dreams in Basho
1) images, ideas, emotions, sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind asleep 2) a state of abstraction; a trance 3) a condition or achievement longed for; aspiration, hope.& ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-03
Compassion in Basho
30 Basho items revealing his "compassonate intuition" can be resources we use to discover and nourish compassion within ourselves. Autumn wind / saying not a word / child in tears.&nb ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-04
Humanity Blossoms
Every Basho haiku in this chapter, and at least one stanza in every renku, is about cherry blossoms – however in each case “cherry blossoms” means human life or death. He m ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-05
Laughing with Basho
How can a writer so light-hearted and funny as Basho be judged as “serious, humorless” and “in a state of perpetual despondency”? Scholars unfamilar with his renku and haibun k ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-06
Six Close Friends
“Contrary to his popular image, Basho was not a social recluse. Instead he constantly cultivated a community of disciples and poets with whom he engaged in poetic dialogue.”
P ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-07
Letters to Ensui, Basho’s BFF
Ensui was the poetry name of Basho's childhood friend and adult follower Soshira. He was the oldest son in a family that owned a sake shop in their home town of Iga; the name of the sho ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-08
Sampu, patron and close friend
Basho lived on the generosity of the wealthy merchant Sampu, three years younger, and the two had lots of fun together: some of Basho’s funniest works were written in connection with Sampu. ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-09
Sora: traveling companion
Here we learn of one of the greatest friendships ever recorded in world literature. Each item appears chronologically, so we travel with Basho and Sora through their time.
Sora was b ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-10
One Fine Woman, Uko
Of the women in Basho’s circle, Uko is the one for whom we have the most information and can draw the most fascinating picture. He wrote two tanka and one haiku to her, three le ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-11
Widow Chigetsu
Chigetsu’s samurai husband was in charge at the Otsu post station of the delivery of important packages by horse. Because they had no son to inherit the household, they adopted Chigetsu’s ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-12
Madame Sonome
Sonome ("Garden Women"), daughter of a priest and official at the Ise Shrine, married to an eye doctor, known for her beauty. The six verses by Sonome in this article, plus Basho's spoken word a ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-13
Letters to Kyorai
Through Basho's letters to his beloved friend we travel through Basho's mind. Kyorai was born in 1651, the second son of Mukai Genshou, a doctor of Chinese medicine in Nagasaki wher ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-14
The Life and Death of Chine
Chine was the younger sister of Kyorai; passages from Kyorai’s Ise Journal, including four poems of Chine, reveal the exuberance and playful heart of this young woman in Japan of old. ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-15
Hospitality
Here are Basho's poems about hospitality in Japanese women: the act, practice, or quality of being hospitable: entertaining guests in a friendly, generous manner.
We begin ...
▶ Humanity and Friendship
D-16
Syllables, Words, and Beats
I aim to reproduce Basho's words in clear natural English with a consistant rhythm of four beats to a measure (including silent pauses) and lots of empty space for your imagination to w ...
▶ On Translating Basho
D-17
Difficulties and Solutions in Translating Basho
Five areas I focus on:
1) Interpersonal messages
2) Realization of ordinary words
3) Lively, active verbs
4) Opposition and coherence
5) Syllables, beats, and a musical quality
Background ...
▶ On Translating Basho
D-18
(Mis)translating Basho’s Humanity
Jane Reichhold claims to have translated ALL of Basho’s haiku, however some of her “translations” contain blatant misreadings of Chinese characters and misunderstandings of Japanese ...
▶ On Translating Basho
D-19
Gentleness in One Basho Letter
For the letter you sent to Chigetsu you have made me grateful.
Gentle your heart’s intention, returning again and again.Chigetsu also has said that feeling enters her.
Basho wa ...
▶ On Translating Basho
D-20
Challenging the Basho Image
Basho in poetry searched for "a fresh novel taste that gives life in both heart and words" yet scholars say Basho was: “impersonal, detached, and objective” – &ld ...
▶ Basho Himself
E-01
20-year-old Basho
Haiku, in spite of their world-wide fame, are only a small part of Basho’s poetry. Here we explorer 12 Basho stanzas from the first renku sequence he participated in, in Spring of 1665. &nb ...
▶ Basho Himself
E-02
Lightness
Lightness shines in Basho poetry from his first renku stanza in 1665 till his final words spoken moments before he died in 1694; only from 1690 did he call his poetic ideal "Lightness." & ...
▶ Basho Himself
E-03
Chuang Tzu to Basho
Whether or not the statements and parables in the ancient Chinese text Chuang Tzu were written by a man named Chuang Tzu, they had a profound effect on Basho 20 centuries later. We examine four areas ...
▶ Basho Himself
E-04
Friends in Zen
”No record surviving today specifies when or where Basho practiced Zen.” says Makota Ueda in biography of Basho. See that Basho cared more about friendship than he did about Zen ...
▶ Basho Himself
E-05
Who was Basho?
The poet was born in 1644 in Iga (east of Nara, southwest of Nagoya),
preceded by a brother Hanzaemon and sister, and followed by three sisters,
with only the last one, Oyoshi, known by name.
...
▶ Basho Himself
E-06
| 51 - 100 of 287 :
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
Basho's thoughts on...
Matsuo Basho 1644~1694
The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.
The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems
Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.
These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.
Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.
“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”
"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"
Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.
Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.
I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.
Quotations from Basho Prose
The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.
The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.
All the more joyful,
all the more caring
Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.
basho4humanity
@gmail.com
Plea for Affiliation
Plea For Affiliation
I pray for your help
in finding someone
- individual, university,
or foundation -
to take over my
3000 pages of material,
to cooperate with me
to edit the material,
to receive all royalties
from sales, to spread
Basho’s wisdom worldwide,
and preserve for
future generations.
basho4humanity
@gmail.com
