Why is Haiku Concerned With Seasonal Change? :: Quora Answer

At one time I was fairly active on the question and answer website Quora. I still answer questions there occasionally, but the site is not what it once was and seems to be going the direction of Yahoo Answers, so I spend far less time there these days.

At any rate, I thought I might reprint some of my answers from there and expand on them. This one was about why haiku must include seasonal words. Here is an expansion and slight rewrite of what I answered:

Why is a Haiku (Japanese poetry) concerned with seasonal changes?

Japanese culture has long been concerned with nature and the seasons and Japanese poetry reflects this. The native religion, Shinto, encourages a kind of nature worship, and the brand of Buddhism that came over from China and Korea was greatly influenced by Taoism, which is also something of a nature worship religion. It's unsurprising that Japanese society paid close attention to nature.

Even the earliest collection of poetry, the Man'yoshu (c8th century), contained sections for the seasons. This set the standard for poetry. The next big collection, the Kokinshu, also contained sections for the seasons, and by that point it was part of poetry tradition.

Flash forward a few centuries and the poetry that all the cool cats were doing was renga, the linked verse predecessor of haiku. There were many flavors of renga, but the basic idea was one person would come up with a verse and another person would respond with another verse. The more witty the response the better. In one form of renga, called renku, the first verse given had to be exactly 17 syllables and was called the hokku. The hokku also had to have a kigo, a season word.

So the requirement of a season reference happen before haiku came around.

Why the requirement? Well, poetry was always something of a game for high society. And what better way to make it more exclusive than by adding rules? Once we are set on making requirements and rules, one about kigo almost seems natural given the history of poetry in the country and the Japanese obsession with nature. I mentioned there were many forms of renga. Some of them required very specific nature references and an exact number of them, such as to cherry blossoms or to the moon. Like I said, it was a game. Renku required just one and it could be any kigo (any of the accepted words, anyway, and there are volumes of books on the accepted words) as long as it came from the current season.

Then we come to Basho.

Anyone who has followed my haiku posts should know that name. Basho is the guy who created haiku as a stand-alone poem and really elevated it to the art form it would become. He was a master of renku but soon realized that he enjoyed the first 17 syllables more than the rest, so he started writing hokku by themselves. Incidentally he always called them hokku. Hokku wouldn't be renamed haiku until the 19th century when Shiki renamed the short verse as part of his attempts to reform the poem.

Basho was all about nature so that went into haiku. That is to say, he maintained the kigo requirement of renku but expanded on it, making the entire poem focus on nature. Basho practiced Zen Buddhism and this had a huge influence on his mindset, and put observing nature as a highly important thing in his mind. Also Basho's mentor was the 12th century poet, Saigyo. Disillusioned with life, Saigyo had become a Buddhist monk relatively young, in his early 20s. He lived alone in the mountains and was known for wandering in the wilderness and taking long journeys on which he would write poetry, a practice Basho emulated. You can see how this kind of life would make a fellow pay close attention to nature.

Because of those two things, when Basho separated the hokku into it's own art form, he not only kept the kigo requirement but was influenced to make the small poems even more about nature.

Interesting, around the time of Shiki there was a movement to drop the kigo requirement. Shiki himself wanted to reform haiku, but he also wanted to keep the kigo requirement.. These days the formal requirements for a haiku are less strict than they once were and it wouldn't be surprising to come across a haiku that didn't have a kigo. It depends on the rules of the publication, mainly, or the managing editor there. Some are more traditional (and more strict) and others are not. And of course people who publish their own haiku can do it however they like. For haiku written in English, I'd say it's more common not to have any reference to the season. I can't say what the trend is for haiku written in other languages.

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So ends my Quora answer. Here is a link to it on Quora, btw.

On another note, I am thinking of starting a renku contest here on Steemit. I will write more about this in another post. But for now, let me know if you are interested in the comments.

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Thank you for reading. :)

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I post one photo everyday, as well as a haiku and as time allows, videos, more Japanese history, and so on. Let me know if there is anything about Japan you would like to know more about or would like to see.

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	David LaSpina is an American photographer lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time.