- Paperback: 136 pages
- Publisher: Columbia University Press (Mar 31 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 023111091X
- ISBN-13: 978-0231110914
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 13.4 x 0.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,326,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
This new selection of [Shiki's] poems, from the hand of a distinguished scholar and translator, is particularly welcome. . . . It was Shiki, the short-lived critic, essayist and poet, who launched a major reform of haiku in the Meiji Era and revitalized the miniature poem for the century ahead. In place of the word-games and imitation to which haiku practice had by then descended, Shiki suggested the 'shasei' or 'sketch from life.' -- Japan Times
Book Description
Here are graceful and timeless poems by one of Japan´s greatest modern writers, rendered by a master translator. Masaoka Shiki (18671902) is credited with modernizing Japan´s two traditional verse forms, haiku and tanka. Born at a time of social and cultural change in Japan, Shiki welcomed the new influences from the West and responded to them by reinvigorating the native haiku and tanka forms. He freed them from outdated conventions, made them viable for artistic expression in modern Japan, and paved the way for the haiku to become one of his nation´s most influential cultural exports. Burton Watson´s excellent introduction explores the course of Shiki´s life: his poverty-stricken childhood, his early love for literature, his education, and his work as a haiku editor for the newspaper Nippon, and as a correspondent during the Sino-Japanese war. Watson details Shiki´s long struggle with tuberculosis and its poignant expression in his poetry. Confined to bed for months before his death, Shiki continued to devote his energies to literary pursuits: writing poems and critical essays, and joining with friends and followers who gathered in his sickroom to discuss literature. He died a few weeks before his thirty-fifth birthday. These poems -more than a hundred haiku, several tanka, and three kanshi -are arranged chronologically within each genre, revealing the development of Shiki´s art and the seamless way in which he wove his life and illness into his poetry.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Last Master, Mar 6 2012
By texcritic - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Masaoka Shiki: Selected Poems (Paperback)
Masaoka Shiki is recognized broadly as the most recent of Japan's haiku masters, and the last of the "big four" -- Basho, Issa, Buson, and Shiki. He pioneered the influential realist technique in haiku known as "shasei", commonly translated as "sketch from life." He had a life tragically shortened by an excruciating tuberculosis that left him bedfast most of the latter half of his life -- a fact that makes his poetic achievement all the more remarkable. Shiki lived at a time when haiku and other traditional Japanese forms were being discarded by writers newly introduced to western poetry, who were eager to embrace the new and leave the old behind. "Shasei" was Shiki's attempt to breathe life into the older forms. Many of Shiki's haiku have the feel of photography when it captures life and time in moments of particular energy:washing green onions --
where the meadow creek
comes into town
country road --
boys whacking at a snake,
barely-harvest time
My summer jacket
wants to get rid of me
and fly away
sudden downpour --
and all these maids
hauling out storm shutters
Translated by the renowned Asian scholar Burton Watson, this collection is a masterful grouping both of Shiki's haiku and his five-line tanka. For haiku readers and devotees, this is essential reading.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth the price, Mar 4 2010
By petaloka - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Masaoka Shiki: Selected Poems (Paperback)
This is my favorite collection/translation of the haiku of Shiki. Treat yourself, its worth it.
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