Haiku Before Haiku: From the Renga Masters to Basho

by Steven D. Carter

Book Overview

While the rise of the charmingly simple, brilliantly evocative haiku is often associated with the seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, the form had already flourished for more than four hundred years before Basho even began to write. These early poems, known as hokku, are identical to haiku in syllable count and structure but function differently as a genre. Whereas each haiku is its own constellation of image...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231156472
• ISBN13: 9780231156479
• Release Date: February 2011
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.1"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher