Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Writing On Basho's Pond, Clark Lunberry

English Faculty Research and Scholarship

Matsuo Bashō (1644–94) is Japan’s most well-known haiku poet; and Bashō’s poem about the old pond, the jumping frog, and the sound of water is Bashō’s best-known haiku. Indeed, this haiku, like Bashō himself, is known well beyond Japan, long ago attaining through its many translations a degree of international recognition. However, in Japan, awareness of Bashō, and of his frog haiku, goes well beyond simple recognition, having long ago absorbed itself into a broader and more complex form of remembrance and, with that absorption, a nearly reflexive response by many of those hearing it. Often, the mere mention of …