“Buson: (1716-1783) Japanese painter and haiku poet. Buson is generally ranked next to Matsuo Basho as the greatest haiku poet of the Tokugawa period. An artist of extraordinary creative range, Buson reinvigorated the traditional haiku genre and infused it with new descriptive realism. As a great painter in the bunjin, or literati, style, Buson paid homage to classical Chinese and Japanese sources. Buson’s poetry is noteworthy for its detachment from the conventions of poetic linking and group poetic practice; thus it points the way to the modern, autonomous haiku poetry associated with Masaoka Shiki, for whom Buson was a revered forerunner.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
