'It was with awe That I beheld Fresh leaves, green leaves, Bright in the sun' In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North, he was an ardent student of Zen Buddhism, setting off on a series of travels designed to strip away the trappings of the material world and bring spiritual enlightenment. He wrote of the seasons changin, of the smells of the rain, the brightness of the moon, and beauty of the waterfall, through which he sense mysteries of the universe. There’s seventeenth-century travel writing not only chronicle Basho's perilous journeys through Japan, but they also capture his vision of eternity in the transient world around him. In his lucid translation Nobuyuki Yuasa captures the Lyrical qualities of Basho's poetry and prose by using the natural rhythms and language of the contemporary speech. IN his introduction, he examines the development of the haibun style in which poetry and prose stand side by side. this edition also includes maps and notes on the texts. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (Penguin Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Matsuo, Bashō

Genre Fiction

Penguin Classics

The Essential Haiku : Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa

Yosa, Buson

Kobayashi, Issa

Poetry

Bt Bound

Monkey's Raincoat

Maeda Cana

Grossman

A wonderful new translation of the poetry of Basho―Zen monk, poet of nature, and master of the haiku form.

Basho's Haiku: Selected Poems of Matsuo Basho

Bashō, Matsuo

Barnhill, David Landis

State Univ of New York Pr

Offers the most comprehensive collection of Basho's prose available, beautifully translated into English.In Basho's Journey, David Landis Barnhill provides the definitive translation of Matsuo Basho's literary prose, as well as a companion piece to his previous translation, Basho's Haiku. One of the world's greatest nature writers, Basho (1644–1694) is well known for his subtle sensitivity to the natural world, and his writings have influenced contemporary American environmental writers such as Gretel Ehrlich, John Elder, and Gary Snyder. This volume concentrates on Basho's travel journal, literary diary (Saga Diary), and haibun. The premiere form of literary prose in medieval Japan, the travel journal described the uncertainty and occasional humor of traveling, appreciations of nature, and encounters with areas rich in cultural history. Haiku poetry often accompanied the prose. The literary diary also had a long history, with a format similar to the travel journal but with a focus on the place where the poet was living. Basho was the first master of haibun, short poetic prose sketches that usually included haiku.As he did in Basho's Haiku, Barnhill arranges the work chronologically in order to show Basho's development as a writer. These accessible translations capture the spirit of the original Japanese prose, permitting the nature images to hint at the deeper meaning in the work. Barnhill's introduction presents an overview of Basho's prose and discusses the significance of nature in this literary form, while also noting Basho's significance to contemporary American literature and environmental thought. Excellent notes clearly annotate the translations.

Basho's Journey: The Literary Prose Of Matsuo Basho

Biographies & Memoirs

David Landis Barnhill

Leaders & Notable People

Matsuo Basho, 1644--1694, is considered Japan's greatest poet of the Haiku. America's James David Andrews is Basho's match in the effectiveness of his translation into English.

Full Moon Is Rising: Lost Haiku of Matsuo Basho (1644-1694 And Travel Haiku of Matsuo Bashio a New Rendering) (English and Japanese Edition)

Andrews, James David

Branden Press Publishers

Verse and prose observations of a seventeenth-century writer during his travels through Japan

Haiku Journey: Basho's the Narrow Road to the Far North and Selected Haiku

Stock, Dennis

Britton, D. Guyver

Kodansha Amer Inc

In the seventeenth century, the pilgrim-poet Basho undertook on foot a difficult and perilous journey to the remote northeastern provinces of Honshu, Japan's main island. Throughout the five-month journey, the master of haiku kept a record of his impressions in a prose-poetry dairy called Oku no Hosomichi, "The Narrow Road to the Far North." That dairy was to become one of the classics of Japanese literature. 
In A Reader's Guide to Japanese Literature, J. Thomas Rimer writes of this classic: 
"[The wry and human touch Basho brought to his haiku] ... may well serve to disguise for the casual reader the fact that Basho was a profoundly serious artist, whose work can be read and pondered for spiritual depths, however pleasant it may be to splash around in his shallows. Nowhere can these qualities be better seen than in his long poetic diary The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no hosomichi), first published in 1702, eight years after his death. It is the longest and, in received opinion, the greatest of his travel accounts, although several of the others ... contain passages in prose and poetry of the highest accomplishment. Basho wrote the diary as a literary re-creation of an actual journey he made to the then remote reaches of northern Japan, a trip begun in 1689 and lasting for over two years. In this diary, which he kept reworking and revising until his death, he mixed fact, fiction, poetry, and prose to create the record of a journey that moves both geographically and spiritually, one strand mixing with the other on virtually every page. Read and reread with care, The Narrow Road to the Deep North can reveal more qualities still basic to Japanese cultural attitudes than perhaps any other work in the whole canon of classical literature. For once, the highest of reputations is truly deserved."

A Haiku Journey: Basho's Narrow Road to a Far Province (English and Japanese Edition)

Kodansha International

The seventeenth-century Japanese poet describes his two-year 1500-mile pilgrimage across the island of Honshu

Back Roads to Far Towns: Basho's Oku-No-Hosomichi (ECCO TRAVELS)

Ecco Pr

Haiku

Benchmark Education Company

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