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According to Nobuyuki Yuasa, Bashō, in The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no Hosomichi ), “mastered the art of writing haibun so completely that prose and haiku illuminate each other like two mirrors held up facing each other. This is something no one before him was able to achieve.”

Before this, Yuasa writes, Bashō “failed to maintain an adequate balance between prose and haiku, making prose subservient to haiku, or haiku isolated from prose.”  The Narrow Road to the Deep Road has become an exemplar for more conservatively-minded, writers of haibun, both Japanese and Westerners. Bashō’s book (amounting to less than fifty pages in translation) is a record of his journey from Edo (as Tokyo was formerly named) to  the north and back again, a journey of about 2,400 kilometres and is considered a classic of Japanese literature that is taught in Japanese schools.

The prose element of Bashō’s haibun usually comprises a short paragraph or two, occasionally more, about his visits to monks and abbots, hermitages, shrines and temples, ruined fortifications and scenes of natural beauty in which he records his impressions. It  is sometimes replete with references to Shintoism with its homage to spirits of place.  It is also full of literary references and he sometimes quotes from famous poems. The accompanying haiku (as well as haiku in general) are imagistic poems that consist of 17  phonetic units (onji in Japanese), similar to but not identical to English syllables, written in a 5/7/5 pattern in a vertical line. Translations of traditional haiku of 17 onji into English generally only require 12 English syllables or even fewer as Japanese onji are often much shorter than English syllables as can be seen in Aitken’s translation at the beginning of this essay. In addition, traditional haiku usually include a kireji or “cutting word” that cuts the haiku into two rhythmical parts, one of twelve onji and the other of five onji, or vice versa (ya is the cutting word in the frog poem here). The cutting word indicates a pause and often  signals some emotion arising from the second rhythmical part with which it ends. Thus the practice of writing haiku in English comprised of 5/7/5 syllables in three lines is actually based on a misconception but it is a benign misconception that has resulted in many fine haiku and it is unlikely to disappear. Bashō was to some extent flexible in his use of syllable count. He once instructed a student, “Even if you have three or four extra syllables, or even five or seven you needn’t worry as long as it sounds right. But even if one syllable is stale in your mouth, give it all your attention.” Bashō’s influence goes beyond form though and it is said that he “ … elevated the haikai [haiku] from word-play into lyric poetry, from a game played by poetasters into a spiritual dimension.”

A number of commentators/translators consider Bashō to be primarily a Zen poet, but others are not so sure. Hamill, for example, appears in no doubt and writes of , “a lifetime of consciously perfecting his practice of both Zen and poetry, indeed of making them one seamless practice.” Stryk is less forceful but nevertheless writes, “Bashō’s discussion of poetry was always tinged by Zen thought and what in his maturity he advocated above all was the realization of muga, so close an identification with things one writes of that the self is forgotten … Bashō’s late poems demonstrate that, in spite of periods of acute self-doubt, he was able to achieve a unity of life  and art, the great hope of Zen creators.” Yet Barnhill  notes that, “cultural memory is a crucial part of Bashō’s apprehension of the present, and allusions to the past are essential to our understanding of some of his hokku [haiku].” Eland writes, “the master of haiku, although he studied with a Zen master in his youth, was always careful to state that he had not attained satori, or enlightenment. His eyes never saw through the earth, and his motto remained, ‘To learn of the pine, go to the pine.’ Thus it was that he spent the last years of his life almost continually on the road. He was paying a visit to the world, a foreigner coming home.” Ueda takes the view that Basho’s main concern in life was not attaining satori but in perfecting the art of haiku.

Bashō’s life and work reveal a complex and sensitive person subject to depression and loneliness who was, arguably, as deeply interested in the writing and teaching of poetry as in following the path of Zen. He did become a lay monk and studied Zen under a well-known teacher for a time. But writing poetry seemed to dominate his life. He wrote, “The invincible power of poetry has reduced me to the condition of a tattered beggar.” Close to his death he told a student, ”I know I shouldn’t be writing haiku now, so close to death. But poetry is all I ever thought of for over fifty years.”

Whatever position you take on Bashō and his relationship to Zen it is important to acknowledge that the writing of haiku for Bashō was not simply a matter of spontaneously capturing in words a moment out of time and thereafter treating them as untouchable. Bashō was a committed reviser of his writings and made repeated, often very subtle, changes. No one knows whether his revisions were designed to better or more accurately express what he experienced or to improve the literary merits of the text.  Given that Bashō  had a school of poetics with his own students and we have a record of his advice on the use of syllables (onji) I think it would be safe to assume that some of his revisions were designed to improve the literary merits of his texts.