Essential Basho : Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings

by BASHO, MATSUO

• ISBN13: 9781570622823
• ISBN10: 1570622825
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-03-01
• Publisher: Shambhala

Summary

Here is the most complete single-volume collection of writings by one of the great luminaries of Asian literature. Includes a masterful translation of Basho's most celebrated work,Narrow Road to the Interior,along with three less well-known works and over 250 of Basho's finest haiku. The translator has included an overview of Basho's life and an essay on the art of haiku.

Author Biography

Sam Hamill has published over twenty books translated from the Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Latin, and Estonian as well as fifteen books of original poetry and literary essays. He has been the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest fund, the Andrew Mellon Fund, and the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission.

Basho (1644–1694)—the most revered poet of Japanese literature—is best known in the West as the author of Narrow Road to the Interior , a travel diary of his journey through northern Japan. Basho elevated the haiku to an art form of utter simplicity and intense spiritual beauty. His travel diaries of linked prose and haiku created a new genre of writing that inspired generations of Japanese poets.

Table of Contents

Translator's Introduction
Chronology
Map of Basho's Journeys
Narrow Road to the Interior	p. 1
Travelogue of Weather-Beaten Bones	p. 37
The Knapsack Notebook	p. 53
Sarashina Travelogue	p. 75
Selected Haiku	p. 83
Afterword	p. 169
Notes	p. 179
Bibliography	p. 183
About the Translator	p. 185
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