Discoveries of Matsuo Basho

This study will examine the experiences and discoveries of Matsuo Basho on his travels in The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches to determine how those experiences enriched his poetry. Basho was, at the time he first set out on his several travels, in the midst of an intensely spiritual time of self-examination. He was not merely traveling for pleasure or distraction from life's worries. To the contrary, he was seeking the ultimate truths of life.

Accordingly, the discoveries Basho made on his travels were serious and profound lessons about himself and nature. Basho is not writing a travelogue, but rather a portrait of his spiritual reality as it exists at the moment of writing each particular poem.

What Basho discovers again and again on his travels is that the natural world and the spiritual reality of the human observer form a relationship and a unity which can be expressed in poetry. As Yuasa writes in his Introduction to the book, "Each locality

. . . is portrayed with a distinctive character all its own. . . Basho was in possession of a magical power to enter into 'the spirit of place'" (37).

It could also be fairly said that Basho has a magical power to enter into his own spiritual reality at any moment, to discover the relationship between his spirit and the spirit of the place, and to then express the result in a clear, simple, but powerfully mysterious poem.

In a sense it is misleading to try to name what Basho discovers which enric

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orrow and doubts of the common man who never dedicates his life to spiritual and artistic pursuits. His discoveries, however spiritual, are always very human. One poem in particular shows how Basho again acknowledges a longing for the consolations of the average human life, even at the moment he re-dedicates himself to the life of spiritual pursuits: From this day forth I shall be called a wanderer, Leaving on a journey Thus among the early showers. You will again sleep night after night Nestled among the flowers of sasanqua (72). Above all, Basho finds spiritual consolation in nature. In every poem nature is evoked not only for its material beauty, but more importantly for its symbolic power. It is, in fact, as if Basho's spiritual journey is essentially a quest for aligning himself with the very process and movement of nature: Abreast I am at last With the fleeting spring Here in the open bay Of Wakanoura (84). Basho comes to use a poetic form of "linked verse" which mirrors the continuity of nature. Certainly it would be a fair charge that Basho has forsaken the world of human beings for the world of nature. Yuasa notes in his Introduction that Basho was actually accompanied by followers on

Category: Literature - D