This is the essential English edition of the complete poems of the eminent Japanese master of the haiku, Matsuo Bashō.
Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) is arguably the greatest figure in the history of Japanese literature and the master of the haiku. Bashō: The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō offers in English a full picture of the haiku of Bashō, 980 poems in all. Andrew Fitzsimons’ translation is the first to adhere strictly to form: all of the poems are translated following the syllabic count of the originals. This book also translates a number of Bashō’s headnotes to poems ignored by previous English-language translators.
In Fitzsimons’ beautiful rendering, Bashō is much more than a philosopher of the natural world and the leading exponent of a refined Japanese sensibility. He is also a poet of queer love and eroticism; of the city as well as the country, the indoors and the outdoors, travel and staying put; of lonesomeness as well as the desire to be alone.
His poetry explores the full range of social experience in Edo Japan as he moved among friends and followers high and low, the elite and the demi-monde, the less fortunate: poor farmers, abandoned children, disregarded elders. Bashō: The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō reveals how this work speaks to our concerns today as much as it captures a Japan emerging from the Middle Ages. For dedicated scholars and those coming upon Bashō for the first time, Fitzsimons’ elegant translation—with an insightful introduction and helpful notes—allows readers to enjoy these works in all their glory.
"Haiku, known in the West for its brevity, would be better served if valued for its spatial radiance. Andrew Fitzsimons' collection presents spare engaging translations with notes on literary allusion, double meanings, and autobiographical detail. These notes are not interpretations. Rather, they are gifts for your journey, should you care to accept. A uniquely wonderful anthology."—Kimiko Hahn, poet and author of Foreign Bodies
"'You must put into words the light in which you see something before that light vanishes.’ Such was the attitude out of which, phrase by phrase, Bashō’s poems were created. Before the light emitted by each phrase of each poem in Japanese disappears, Fitzsimons carries it across into English. Bashō’s Complete Haiku is an extraordinary achievement."—Takahashi Mutsuo, poet and author of Twelve Views from the Distance
"A breath of fresh air in the middle of a chaotic world. Fitzsimons has done a beautiful job showing the uniqueness, drama, and playfulness of Bashō's originals."—Jeffrey Angles, poet and translator of Killing Kanoko: Selected Poetry of Hiromi Itō and Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako
"This complete set of Bashō's haiku, brilliantly translated and annotated by Andrew Fitzsimons, makes the poet's work in the context of his life understandable as it never has been before in English. This book marks a moment of huge significance in world poetry."—Bernard O’Donoghue, University of Oxford
