Matsuo Bashō

Matsuo Bashō was born in 1644 into a family of low-ranking samurai at Iga Ueno. As a young man he served Tōdō Yoshitada, the son of the local lord, and studied haikai verse with him. After Yoshitada's early death he went to Edo and became a professional poet, later retiring to a hut at Fukagawa beside which a disciple had planted a banana tree, bashō, which gave him his name. He raised haikai from a game of wit into a serious art of quiet loneliness and profound beauty, and is honoured as the 'saint of haiku'. He made many long journeys and wrote several travel diaries; he died on the road at Osaka in 1694, and his last poem reads: 'Sick on a journey, my dreams go wandering over withered fields.'