Letter by Matsuo Basho
- Person
-
作者松尾芭蕉
- Date
-
制作年 AD17
- Title
- マツオバショウヒツショジョウ
- Collections
- Century Akao Collection
- Depository
- Institute of Oriental Classics (Shido Bunko) Campus Mita
- Ref. number
- AW-CEN-001937-0000
- License
- CC BY Images license
- Creditline
-
慶應義塾（センチュリー赤尾コレクション）
- URL
- Classification
- Art
- AI Tagging
- Handwriting Rectangle Wood Font Art
Matsuo Basho (1644-94) was a haiku poet who lived during the early Edo Period. Hailing from Ueno in Iga Province (today’s Mie Prefecture), he actually started out as a samurai, serving as attendant to Yoshitada (1642-66), the third son of Todo Yoshikiyo (?-1674), the Head of Samurai Affairs for the local Ueno government. Later, Basho went to Kyoto, where he studied Teimon School haikai (a school of haiku originated by Matsunaga Teitoku) under Kitamura Kigin (1625-1705) and calligraphy under Kitamuki Unchiku (1632-1703). After 1680, he lived in a house named Basho-An (lit. a hut made of banana leaves) in Fukagawa Town in Edo. Basho, however, is best known for his journeys throughout Japan that served as inspiration for many of his haiku poems, which were made popular in collections such as Nozarashi Kiko (The Records of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton), Oi-no-Kobumi (Travel-worn Satchel), and Oku-no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North). Incorporating the aesthetic values of sabi (an antique appearance), shiori (the identification of men with nature), hosomi (sensitivity) and karumi (transience), Matsuo Basho became the founder of a new style of haiku composition and trained numerous disciples, with Enomoto Kikaku (1661-1707) and Mukai Kyorai (1651-1707) being two of the most well-known. Immediately before his death, Basho composed one of his last pieces of this new style at a joint haiku party held at the home of Watarai Sonome (1664-1726) in Osaka. An extremely famous poem, know as his farewell verse, it goes as follows: “Taken ill on my trip, my dreams wonder through fields of withered grass.” While famous for his poems, Basho also wrote letters, many of which can be found in the Basho Shokanshu (lit. Collection of Basho’s Letters). The collection contains one in particular that he sent to his disciple Dosui on April 10, 1691, when Basho was 48. Basho writes, “You are a butterfly.” Because this same reference in used in the letter exhibited here, one can conclude that it too is addressed to Dosui. “You are a butterfly” was also the title of a composition, about a “butterfly dream,” found in Discussion on Making All Things Equal (Burton Watson’s translation) by Chuang-tzu (Ch. Zhuangzi; famous Taoist philosopher). In the dream, Chuang-tzu becomes a butterfly and, his awareness blurred, wonders if he is a philosopher who thinks he is a butterfly or a butterfly who dreams that he is a philosopher. The “butterfly dream” episode was often quoted to show elusive identity and the ephemeral nature of human life. In this letter, Basho likens his relationship with Dosui to the relationship between Chuang-tzu and the butterfly.
一昨日はハ紙面被下拝見申候御発句誠ニ近比ニ無き品ニて御座候御厚志之儀察入候一昨日近所へ罷出候間御伝御報延引御免可被成候御咄し之御方より度／＼御文被下何与申て可申承与礼申候案之事申候いつれ何と無く書又々是等書入申候きミやてふ我は荘子の夢心此所能／＼御許ねかへ入候我等事も御返事ニこまり申候明後日御揃之由其時萬用可申述候右御礼等延引之申訳早々謹言四月十一日はせを
Overview
Rights
Depository and ID
Components
OPEN DATADESIGN
Keio Object Hub makes data on cultural objects open and tries designing various experiences using open data.
Details
Identifiers
- Title (EN)
- Letter by Matsuo Basho
Physical description
- Weights and quantities
-
Quantity 1幅
As a prototype feature, the Keio Object Hub uses AI (machine learning) to generate keywords for searches and filtering.
For the first launch, Google Cloud's Vision API will be used to analyze the images of each object and automatically generate keywords.