Until the sixteenth century, nearly all poetry written in Japanese took the thirty-one syllable tanka form. The development from tanka to the more well-known haiku can be understood in connection with the renga, "linked poem," which provides a kind of historical tie between the tanka and haiku structures.
Toward the end of the Heian period, there had been a tendency among tanka poets to divide their poems into two units with syllabic counts of 5-7-5 (three lines) and 7-7 (two lines), each unit containing a poetic image of its own.
During the fourteenth century, the renga developed alongside the tanka. Two or more poets would take part in writing renga, composing, in turns, verses of seventeen (5-7-5) and fourteen (7-7) syllables. Each such verse is linked to the preceding and following verses in accordance with strict conventions by means of images, associations, or plays on words. The results of these gatherings are "chain poems”, sometimes scores of verses long -- collective creations that changed the writing of poetry from an art with social functions to a genuinely social pastime.
Before long, two styles of poetry arose in the renga tradition, each differing in the class and temperament of its participants. One style tended toward rigid, formal rules, serious subject matter, and refined language, in the traditional manner of court poetry. The other, which prevailed increasingly during the sixteenth century, was formally less rigorous and more popular in tone. Poets writing haikai no renga, the latter style, made use of images drawn from everyday life, expressed simply and often humorously.
This was the style adopted by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), one of the greatest of haiku poets. He and his pupils often chose to compose only the opening passage of a renga, the hokku, "opening phrase," as a verse in itself, forgoing the rest of the chain. In this manner the opening unit of seventeen syllables in three lines came to be considered a poem in its own right, and more and more poets began to test their talents with it rather than with the tanka. This shortened style was at times called haikai and later received the name it holds today - haiku.
Lost in wine, I did not notice dusk descendingPetals dropped and piled up on my robeDrunk, I rise and walk the moonlit valleyThe birds have gone, and people too are few.Until the sixteenth century, nearly all poetry written in Japanese took the thirty-one syllable tanka form. The development from tanka to the more well-known haiku can be understood in connection with the renga, "linked poem," which provides a kind of historical tie between the tanka and haiku structures.
Toward the end of the Heian period, there had been a tendency among tanka poets to divide their poems into two units with syllabic counts of 5-7-5 (three lines) and 7-7 (two lines), each unit containing a poetic image of its own.
During the fourteenth century, the renga developed alongside the tanka. Two or more poets would take part in writing renga, composing, in turns, verses of seventeen (5-7-5) and fourteen (7-7) syllables. Each such verse is linked to the preceding and following verses in accordance with strict conventions by means of images, associations, or plays on words. The results of these gatherings are "chain poems”, sometimes scores of verses long -- collective creations that changed the writing of poetry from an art with social functions to a genuinely social pastime.
Before long, two styles of poetry arose in the renga tradition, each differing in the class and temperament of its participants. One style tended toward rigid, formal rules, serious subject matter, and refined language, in the traditional manner of court poetry. The other, which prevailed increasingly during the sixteenth century, was formally less rigorous and more popular in tone. Poets writing haikai no renga, the latter style, made use of images drawn from everyday life, expressed simply and often humorously.
This was the style adopted by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), one of the greatest of haiku poets. He and his pupils often chose to compose only the opening passage of a renga, the hokku, "opening phrase," as a verse in itself, forgoing the rest of the chain. In this manner the opening unit of seventeen syllables in three lines came to be considered a poem in its own right, and more and more poets began to test their talents with it rather than with the tanka. This shortened style was at times called haikai and later received the name it holds today - haiku.