Basho and His Interpreters: Selected Hokku with Commentary

This book has a certain magic. Each poem is focused on with multiple commentaries as well as two translations, one literary, one literal word by word. Also the Japanese words are provided. The result is haiku "haikued", as the initial focus of the haiku is multiplied by several layers of perspective. You can go deep with this bookThe period commentaries are refreshingly not postmodern! They breathe the sensibilities of another era.

The haiku in this collection are absolutely beautiful, and the best I have ever read.Printed next to each haiku, are the literal translations of each word. These literal translations are fascinating and provide insight into both the poet and the translator for the non japanese speaking reader. In addition, below each haiku are several brief reactions/comments written by scholars and poets...there are very, very interesting. The forward is also fascinating. An enjoyable, beautiful, rich and thoughtful book.

I ordered this book with high hopes but shut it firmly after browsing it. The translations are not good. Here is Haruo Shirane's translation of Basho coming across an old battlefield, now overgrown: summer grasses --traces of dreams of ancient warriorsAnd this is Ueda:summer grasseswhere stalwart soldiersonce dreamed a dream.Clearly, Ueda has a tin ear.

Great.

Writing about the great haiku poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), in both Japanese and English, is  widespread , and  translations  of his  poems  and  prose   works   are   myriad . In "Basho and His Interpreters," Basho authority  Makoto Ueda  gives us something new: an anthology of commentary.The book features 255 of Basho's poems, arranged in chronological order and spanning his entire life. After each poem are selections from several Japanese commentators--sometimes just two or three, sometimes five or more for especially important or well-known poems. Commentators range from contemporaries of Basho to modern-day thinkers and writers.Basho has traditionally been revered, and if the book has a weakness it is that the comments on a given poem sometimes blur together as too many cite the same source poem and lavish the same praise. (The pattern is sometimes broken up--for example, by Masaoka Shiki who, writing at the end of the 19th century, felt Basho had been too much loved and sought explicitly to take him down a peg.) More to the point, the best selections of comments reveal the more subtle disputes between interpreters. In regard to one poem ("how solemn!", p. 231), one writer says "The poet's virtuosity here is almost intimidating"; but another states flatly, "This is not a good poem." In another poem (p. 249), commentators debate whether one cicada or several is present.In addition to the commentaries proper, Ueda adds concise surveys of each year of Basho's life, with emphasis on his artistic development and poetic activities. Ueda's writing is lucid, which is reflected in the poems and commentaries: the translations of the haiku, if not daring, are accurate and perfectly useful in the context; the commentaries are also translated into highly readable prose.Taken together, these materials should appeal to a range of readers: those interested in Basho on an academic level will find new points of view (and without the work of sifting through the voluminous body of criticism history has left us), while those new to the poet can learn to appreciate the beauty and scope of both his work and his life.~

This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in Basho, haiku, or Japanese literature. Ueda combines Basho's own verse with interpretations by well-known haikai commentators (including Akutagawa, Rohan, Hagiwara, and Abe Jiro etc) and entries from Basho's own travel diaries, in which he describes many of the situations that inspired many of his poems. This is a good introduction for beginners and afficionados alike, for it provides a great deal of background information and a wide scale of interpretations that add depth and connotation to the readers understanding of each verse. The book also includes a glossary of terms as well as a section of short biographies for the commentators.

this book is great as a collection of representative verses by basho, the greatest master in the haikai tradition.i'll just add to the other reviewer's remarks that this book can also be read from cover to cover so you can get a feel for basho's development as a poet. overall, a nice book.

It is my basic haiku bible