the haiku read alone on a page, blurred by lack of shared cultural reference and by translation, was often originally written in circumstances both specific and knowable by its original readers. As mentioned earlier, many of Bashō’s haiku were composed as part of linked verse gatherings. Others were written for poetry competitions with assigned subjects. Many were personal communications—messages sent between friends, between guest and host or teacher and student—or placed within travel journals or the prose settings of haibun, which gave them added meaning. Some were written about paintings,
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