''Haikai'' ( Japanese 俳諧 ''comic, unorthodox'') may refer in both Japanese and English to ''haikai no renga'' (

renku , or , is a Japanese form of popular collaborative linked verse poetry. It is a development of the older Japanese poetic tradition of ''ushin'' renga, or orthodox collaborative linked verse. At renku gatherings participating poets take turns prov ...

), a popular genre of Japanese linked verse, which developed in the sixteenth century out of the earlier aristocratic

renga ''Renga'' (, ''linked poem'') is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry in which alternating stanzas, or ''ku (''句), of 5-7-5 and 7-7 morae (sound units, not to be confused with syllables) per line are linked in succession by multiple poets ...

. It meant "vulgar" or "earthy", and often derived its effect from satire and puns, though "under the influence of atsuo Bashō (1644–1694) the tone of haikai no renga became more serious". "Haikai" may also refer to other poetic forms that embrace the haikai

aesthetic Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,'' , acces ...

, including

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

and

senryū is a Japanese form of short poetry similar to haiku in construction: three lines with 17 (or , often translated as syllables, but see the article on for distinctions). tend to be about human foibles while haiku tend to be about nature, and a ...

(varieties of one-verse haikai),

haiga is a style of Japanese painting that incorporates the aesthetics of ''haikai''. ''Haiga'' are typically painted by haiku poets (''haijin''), and often accompanied by a haiku poem. Like the poetic form it accompanied, ''haiga'' was based on simp ...

(haikai art, often accompanied by haiku), and

haibun is a prosimetric literary form originating in Japan, combining prose and haiku. The range of ''haibun'' is broad and frequently includes autobiography, diary, essay, prose poem, short story and travel journal. History The term "''haibun''" was ...

(haiku mixed with prose, such as in the diaries and travel journals of haiku poets). However, haikai does not include orthodox renga or waka.

Pre-Bashō Schools

Teimon School

The Teimon School, centred around

Matsunaga Teitoku was a Japanese ''haikai'' and ''waka'' poet. As a teacher of ''Teimon Haikai'', he spread ''haikai'' throughout Japan. He was considered by R H Blyth to be the most important of Matsuo Bashō's predecessors. Achievements Teitoku played a signi ...

, did much to codify the rules of haikai, as well as to encourage the writing of stand-alone

hokku is the opening stanza of a Japanese orthodox collaborative linked poem, '' renga'', or of its later derivative, '' renku'' (''haikai no renga''). From the time of Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694), the ''hokku'' began to appear as an independent poem, ...

Danrin School

The Danrin school reacted against the wordplay and mannerisms of the Teimon school, and expanded both the subject matter of haikai and its vocabulary, to describe ordinary life including vulgarisms: the use of what Bashō called "more homely images, such as a crow picking mud-snails in a rice paddy".

Bashō

Matsuo Bashō is one of the most famous poets of the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

and the greatest figure active in Japanese haikai during the latter half of the seventeenth century. He made his life’s work the transformation of haikai into a literary genre. For Bashō, haikai involved a combination of comic playfulness and spiritual depth, ascetic practice and involvement in human society. He composed haikai masterpieces in a variety of genres, including renku, haibun, and haiga. In contrast to the traditional Japanese poetry of his day, Bashō’s haikai treated the ordinary, everyday lives of commoners, portraying figures from popular culture such as the beggar, the traveler and the farmer. In crystallizing the newly popular haikai, he played a significant role in giving birth to modern

, which reflected the common culture.

Bashō Revival

A new group of poets emerged in the mid-1700s who "condemned the commercialized practices fcontemporary haikai and argued for a return to the ideals of Matsuo Bashō". The 18th century reform movement, lasting from around the 1730s to the 1790s came to be called the Bashō Revival. Prominent poets of this movement included

Yosa Buson was a Japanese poet and Painting, painter of the Edo period. He lived from 1716 – January 17, 1784. Along with Matsuo Bashō and Kobayashi Issa, Buson is considered among the greatest poets of the Edo Period. He is also known for completing ...

(1716-1783),

Miura Chora was a Japanese poet raised in Ise, in the Mie Prefecture of Shima Province on the island of Honshu, Japan. He traveled throughout the country composing poems and helped lead the Matsuo Bashō revival movement of the eighteenth century. Childho ...

(1729-1780), Takai Kitō (1741-1789), and Wada Ranzan (d. 1773). " her major 'Back to Bashō' poets were Tan Taigi 炭太祇 (1709–1771), Katō Kyōtai 加藤暁台 (1732-1792), Chōmu 蝶夢 (1732–1795), Kaya Shirao 加舎白雄 (1738–1791), and Hori Bakusui (1718-1783). The movement had followers all over the country, due in part to the itinerant habits of many of its members." The revival movement members competed with the tentori poets, who neglected the craft of poetry in favor of dazzling readers with wit, "favor ng''zoku''(), the mundane or commonplace, over ''ga''(), the elegant and refined".

Yosa Buson and Masaoka Shiki

In the late

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

, the poet and literary critic

Masaoka Shiki , pen-name of Masaoka Noboru (正岡升), was a Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. Shiki is regarded as a major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry, credited with writing nearly 20,000 stanzas during ...

(1867–1902) first used the term ''haiku'' for the modern, standalone verses of haikai that Bashō had popularized. Until then, haiku had been called

, a term which refers to the first verse in a ''

'' sequence. Shiki also rediscovered

, a prominent "Back to Bashō" poet and painter who died in 1784. Shiki considered Buson a painter in words and a visual poet, and Shiki's writings during the 19th century formed the foundation for the appraisal of Buson’s work in most of the 20th century.

References

{{Authority control Japanese poetry Haikai forms Japanese literary terminology