(~100k words, 3 hours) Academicly-oriented examination of the post-Basho haiku poet & painter Yosa Buson. Of obscure origins, Buson is one of the more popular post-Basho haiku poets, along with Kobayashi Issa. But where Issa is known for his idiosyncrasy and sympathetic focus on animals, Buson is much more traditional and tried to live up to the ideal of the bunjin or Chinese-like literary gentleman who has mastered all the arts of the brush in a refined and almost distant style.

Crowley has written a quasi-biography describing Buson's life and putting his painting & haiku in their context of trying to de-commercialize and de-popularize haiku to return it to a more Basho-like tone, while reluctantly accepting the mantle of head of a haiku lineage, maintaining his pose as a detached amateur pursuing art for art's sake, and trying to make a living by selling paintings to his patrons and customers in the provinces where he traveled widely. Knowing Buson through some of his more austere haiku, I found Crowley succeeds in humanizing Buson remarkably (the larger context here is her arguing against the late Japanese critic & poet Shiki, who had rediscovered Buson but presented him as a coldly detached observer); before, I could not imagine Buson writing about someone scratching their testicles.

I also appreciated that she gives ample space to covering the social aspects of the linked-verse form renga (which because of the difficulty in explaining what any of the links mean or the many formal rules involved, tends to be completely glossed over in all Western works; while I think renga never survives translation and is worthless aesthetically to read, it's important to any history or discussion as it was one of the most common activities) - even translating one for the appendices - and also providing long translations of several other key works she quotes from. The discussion of his haiga likewise goes well beyond the usual superficialities and presentation of one or two photos, as Crowley comments in detail on how exactly the haiku and painting are supposed to combine into something more than their sum, and on the extremely obscure Chinese allusions Buson is prone to as a proper bunjin. (For example, the WP article on haiga includes as an example "A little cuckoo across a hydrangea by Yosa Buson" but does not give the translated haiku, which turns out to require 3 pages of commentary to unpack all the allusions in the haiku and painting.)

Needless to say, this will only be of value to those already interested in haiku and its history.