HAIKU

A traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5
syllable count where the first and last lines have five moras, and the middle line has seven. The mora is
another name for a sound unit, which is like a syllable, though there is a difference. As the moras cannot
be translated into English, they are modified, and syllables are used instead. The lines of such poems
rarely rhyme with each other and often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity,
intensity, and directness of expression. In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line
while haiku in English often appear in three lines parallel to the three phrases of Japanese haiku.

Haiku became popular as tanka poems in Japan during the 9th and 12th centuries. Initially, it was
called “hokku” and Basho, Buson, and Issa were the first three masters of the haiku genre. Haiku poetry is
also full of metaphors and personifications. However, this has often been argued against, since haikus are
supposed to be written on objective experiences, rather than subjective ones.

History of the Haiku Form

Haiku began in thirteenth-century Japan as the opening phrase of renga, an oral poem, generally
a hundred stanzas long, which was also composed syllabically. The much shorter haiku broke away from
renga in the sixteenth century and was mastered a century later by Matsuo Basho, who wrote this classic
haiku:

An old pond!

A frog jumps in—

the sound of water.

As the form has evolved, many of its regular traits—including its famous syllabic pattern—have
been routinely broken. However, the philosophy of haiku has been preserved: the focus on a brief
moment in time; a use of provocative, colorful images; an ability to be read in one breath; and a sense of
sudden enlightenment.

In 1973, the Haiku Society of America noted that the norm for writers of haiku in English was to
use 17 syllables, but they also noted a trend toward shorter haiku. Shorter haiku are very much more
common in 21st century English haiku writing.

Kiru and Kireji

In Japanese haiku a kireji, or cutting word, typically appears at the end of one of the verse's three
phrases. A kireji fills a role somewhat analogous to a caesura in classical western poetry or to a Volta in
sonnets.

In English, since kireji have no direct equivalent, poets sometimes use punctuation such as a dash
or ellipsis, or an implied break to create juxtaposition intended to prompt the reader to reflect on the
relationship between the two parts.
Syllables or on

Although the word "on" is sometimes translated as "syllable", one on is counted for a short
syllable, two for an elongated vowel or doubled consonant, and one for an "n" at the end of a syllable.
Thus, the word "haibun", though counted as two syllables in English, is counted as four on in Japanese
(ha-i-bu-n); and the word "on" itself, which English-speakers would view as a single syllable, comprises
two on: the short vowel o and the moraic nasal. Some translators of Japanese poetry infer that about 12
syllables in English approximate the duration of 17 Japanese on.

Kigo

A haiku traditionally contains a kigo, a word or phrase that symbolizes or implies the season of
the poem and which is drawn from a saijiki, an extensive but prescriptive list of such words. Kigo are
often in the form of metonyms and can be difficult for those who lack Japanese cultural references to
spot.

Examples

The best-known Japanese haiku is Bashō's "old pond":

fu-ru-i-ke ya (5)

ka-wa-zu to-bi-ko-mu (7)

mi-zu-no-o-to (5)

Translated:[16]

old pond

frog leaps in

water's sound

ha-tsu shi-gu-re (5)

sa-ru mo ko-mi-no o (7)

ho-shi-ge na-ri (5)

Translated:

the first cold shower

even the monkey seems to want

a little coat of straw

This haiku by Bashō illustrates that he was not always constrained to a 5-7-5 on pattern. It contains 18 on
in the pattern 6-7-5

fu-ji no ka-ze ya (6)

o-u-gi ni no-se-te (7)

e-do mi-ya-ge (5)

Translated:

the wind of Fuji

I've brought on my fan

a gift from Edo

This haiku by Issa illustrates that 17 Japanese on do not always equate to 17 English syllables

Features of Haiku

 It contains three lines.

 It has five moras (syllables) in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the last line.
 It contains 17 syllables in total.
 A Haiku poem does not rhyme.
 Haiku poems frequently have a kigo, or seasonal reference.
 Haiku poems are usually about nature or natural phenomena.
 The poem has two juxtaposed subjects that are divided into two contrasting parts.
 In English, this division between two parts can be shown by a colon or a dash.

Famous haiku poets

Matsuo Bashō

Matsuo Bashō was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō
was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of
commentary, he is recognized as the greatest master of haiku. Matsuo Bashō's poetry is internationally
renowned; and, in Japan, many of his poems are reproduced on monuments and traditional sites. Matsuo
Bashō was born in 1644, near Ueno, in Iga Province. The Matsuo family was of samurai descent, and his
father was probably a musokunin, a class of landowning peasants granted certain privileges of samurai.

Little is known of his childhood. In his late teens, Bashō became a servant to Tōdō Yoshitada
probably in some humble capacity, and probably not promoted to full samurai class. It is claimed he
served as cook or a kitchen worker in some near-contemporaneous accounts, but there is no conclusive
proof. A later hypothesis is that he was chosen to serve as page to Yoshitada, with alternative
documentary evidence suggesting he started serving at a younger age.
 Matsuo Basho made about 1000 haiku poems in his lifetime with the jouney around Japan. His
writing “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” is the most famous haiku collection in Japan.

Examples of his works:

The door of thatched hut

Also changed the owner.

At the Doll’s Festival.

Spring is passing.

The birds cry, and the fishes fill

With tears on their eyes.

Yosa no Buson

Yosa no Buson (1716-1783) was one in a triumvirate of haikai immortals of the Edo era in Japan:
before him came the master, Matsuo Basho and after him the “humanist” Kobayashi Issa .He was born at
Kema, a village which has been swallowed up by the present-day city of Osaka, until suddenly, at the age
of twenty-one, he pops up in Edo (Tokyo), apprenticed to the haikai master Hayano Soa.

This apprenticeship, which included some practice of haiga, or painting, , lasted until the death of
Soa in 1742. At the end of the first year he emerges from the pupal stage by symbolically changing his
name from Saicho to Buson, a name whose compounds mean “cease to be” and “village.” And under that
name he has given us more than 2500 haiku.

Yosa Buson was a haiku poet in the Edo era and also active as a painter. Therefore, his haiku has
a feature that highlights a visual image clearly. Buson honored the great master of haiku Matsuo Basho
(1644-1694) and his style of the poetry.

Examples:

The fading of spring.

The feeling of holding

Of the biwa.

The canola flowers.

The moon in the east.

The sun in the west.

Kobayashi Issa

Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa, also known as Kobayashi Yataro and Kobayashi Nobuyuki, was
born in Kashiwabara, Shinanao province. He eventually took the pen name Issa, which means “cup of
tea” or, according to poet Robert Hass, “a single bubble in steeping tea.”

Issa’s father was a farmer. His mother died when he was young, and he was raised by his
grandmother. His father remarried, and Issa did not get along well with his stepmother or stepbrother,
eventually becoming involved in disputes over his father’s property. When Issa was 14, he left home to
study haiku in Edo. He spent years traveling and working until returning to Kashiwabara in the early
1810s. In Kashiwabara, his life was marked by sorrow— the death of his first wife and three children, an
unsuccessful second marriage, the burning down of his house, and a third marriage.

Issa’s haiku are as attentive to the small creatures of the world—mosquitoes, bats, cats—as they
are tinged with sorrow and an awareness of the nuances of human behavior. In addition to haiku, Issa
wrote pieces that intertwined prose and poetry, including Journal of My Father’s Last Days and The Year
of My Life.

The snow is melting

and the village is flooded

with children.

All the time I pray to Buddha

I keep on

killing mosquitoes.

Masaoka Shiki

Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) put effort into poetry activities to bring about innovation in the haiku
from the Edo period. In the seven years of his later years, he kept making haiku while suffering from
tuberculosis.

In 1867, Masaoka Shiki was born in Iyo Province (today’s Ehime Prefecture). He was a son of
the lower-class samurai who died 40 years old in 1872. With the support of his mother, he entered the Iyo
clan school Jobankai. He began to learn haiku when he was 18. But Shiki got the illness which he
suffered from ever since. Tuberculosis was fatal disease at that time and 21 years young haiku poet
vomited blood for the first time. Shiki means little cuckoo in Japanese. He named own pen name after the
bird because a little cuckoo was described as a bird sing so much that it vomit blood.

He entered Tokyo Imperial University (today’s Tokyo University) in 1900 and gave the lessons
of haiku for Kawahigashi Hekigoto (1873-1937) and Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959). Shiki gave up to
graduate from Tokyo Imperial University and started to work at Nippon Shinbun Newspaper. While
working as a journalist, he continued to publish haiku poems. During the Sino ‐Japanese War (1894 ‐95) he
went to the front. But that made worse of tuberculosis and Shiki went home. He had been in ill bed and
suffered in his later years but he composed the jolly and creative haiku poems.

Examples:

I got drunk, a sleep.

And wept on the dream.

A wild cherry blossoms

Flutteringly,

Floating in the breeze,

A single butterfly.

Tanka
The tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of
waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as "short song," and is better known in its five-line,
5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form.

The tanka is sometimes separated by the three “upper lines” (kami no ku) and the two “lower
ones” (shimo no ku). The upper unit is the origin of the haiku. The brevity of the poem and the turn from
the upper to the lower lines, which often signals a shift or expansion of subject matter, is one of the
reasons the tanka has been compared to the sonnet. There is a range of words, or engo (verbal
associations), that traditionally associate or bridge the sections. Like the sonnet, the tanka is also
conducive to sequences, such as the hyakushuuta, which consists of one hundred tankas.

In many ways, the tanka resembles the sonnet, certainly in terms of treatment of subject. Like the
sonnet, the tanka employs a turn, known as a pivotal image, which marks the transition from the
examination of an image to the examination of the personal response. This turn is located within the third
line, connecting the kami-no-ku, or upper poem, with the shimo-no-ku, or lower poem.

The tanka, which comprised the majority of Japanese poetry from the ninth to the nineteenth
century, is possibly the central genre of Japanese literature.

Famous tanka poets

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, pseudonym Chōkōdō Shujin or Gaki, (born March 1, 1892, Tokyo, Japan
—died July 24, 1927, Tokyo), prolific Japanese writer known especially for his stories based on events in
the Japanese past and for his stylistic virtuosity. His notable works are Rashomon and Kappa.

As a boy Akutagawa was sickly and hypersensitive, but he excelled at school and was a voracious
reader. He began his literary career while attending Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of
Tokyo), where he studied English literature from 1913 to 1916.

Akutagawa is one of the most widely translated of all Japanese writers, and a number of his
stories have been made into films. The film classic Rashomon (1950), directed by Kurosawa Akira, is
based on a combination of Akutagawa’s story by that title and another story of his, “Yabu no naka”
(1921; “In a Grove”). His cause of death was suicide.

Mokichi Saitō

Mokichi Saitō (May 14, 1882 – February 25, 1953) was a Japanese poet of the Taishō period, a
member of the Araragi School of tanka, and a psychiatrist. Mokichi was born in the village of Kanakame,
now part of Kaminoyama, Yamagata in 1882. He attended Tokyo Imperial University Medical School
and, upon graduation in 1911, joined the staff of Sugamo Hospital where he began his study of
psychiatry.

Mokichi studied tanka under Itō Sachio, a disciple of Masaoka Shiki and leader, after his master's
death, of the Negishi Tanka Society; Sachio also edited the society's official journal Ashibi.

Mokichi's career as a poet spanned almost 50 years. At the time of his death at the age of 70, he
had published seventeen poetry collections which include “14,200 or so poems,” the collected works
being overwhelmingly devoted to tanka. In 1950 he received the inaugural Yomiuri Prize for poetry.He
received the Order of Culture in 1951.

Mokichi was the family doctor of author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa and may have unknowingly
played an indirect role in the latter's suicide. He also wrote philological essays on waka of Kakinomoto no
Hitomaro and of Minamoto no Sanetomo.

In a Grove Analysis

In a Grove" is one of the most popular of Akutagawa's short stories, having been adapted into a
film in 1950 and also widely translated into many languages during the '90s. Whereas this version of the
story was translated over 50 years ago, Jay Rubin's recent translation of this text in Rashōmon and
Seventeen Stories provides a more modern understanding of the Japanese language, the biggest change
being that Masago doesn't truly confess in the way that we know the word. It is more akin to "repentance"
or "penitence" because of its religious connotations.
 At a quick glance, it is easy to see that the three stories do not match up. In fact, Tajomaru,
Masago, and Takehiko each say that they killed Takehiko with their own hands. The things we can
presume to know are as follows: 1) Takehiko is dead, 2) Tajomaru raped Masago, 3). Tajomaru stole the
arrows, quiver, and horse, 4). Masago wishes Takehiko to be dead, 5). Masago and Tajomaru did not
leave together.

This brilliant story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa brings into question the accuracy of the human
perception and fully illustrates our tendency to lie he excelled in examining the darker side of humanity in
his writings. But the thing about this story is Ryunosuke Akutagawa didn't really provide us with a
distinction between what the truths are and what are merely fabrications. What he did is provide us with
information, and it would be up to the readers to form the puzzle and make out the story for it to be
rational. This is a series of testimonials about a murder. And as you go on reading along, your former
belief of what really happened would be contradicted by another person's account...leaving the readers to
wonder what really happened after all.

The point is that it's impossible to know the truth of what happened. All facts are second hand,
everything is hearsay. In attempting to find out what the truth is, we find out just how murky the waters of
"truth" truly are. Here are the vital information taken from the testimonies of the characters.

The story is like a riddle without an answer. If you try to solve the story of the man and who
murdered him, you can't. It's impossible. But the point ISN'T who murdered the man. The point is to
question just what the manner of truth is. This is a very existentialist story. Note that EVERYTHING is
second hand. We don't know anything.