ABSTRACT
The modern haiku derives from the seventeen-syllable hokku (opening verse) of a haikai no renga, or comic linked-verse sequence. These usually consisted of from thirty-six to one hundred links composed in alternate verses of seventeen (5/7/5) and fourteen (7/7) syllables by one or more poets. In the seventeenth century (or early Edo period [1600–1867]), when Matsuo Bashō (1644–94) began his career as a haikai poet, the hokku was regarded primarily as the beginning of a linked-verse (renga) sequence. Bashō considered himself to be, first and foremost, a comic linked-verse poet and was a haikai teacher by profession, but he often composed independent hokku—commonly referred to by modern readers as haiku—for which he is primarily known today and which lie at the heart of his prose narratives.
