【A designated cultural property of Yamagata Prefecture】
Mid-Edo Era (18C)
Yosa Buson (1716-1783) never actually produced his own haiku anthology while alive, commenting
to the effect of “Anyhow, I will not publish.” Having said that, once the Tensei era had started, he did compile his works of haiku with the intention of publishing an anthology, including them in a “book of signed haiku”. The original volume is thought to have totaled 120 pages and contained 1500 or so haiku in all.
This folding screen shows part of the autographed haiku collection torn up and repasted in the order of the four seasons, with margin illustrations added by the student Goshun (whose haiku name was Gekkei). The screen shown on the right contains 14 pasted pages of the spring section (totaling 214 poems) and 13 from the summer section (194 poems). On the left, 13 pages are pasted from the autumn collection (194 poems) and 14 from that of winter (206 poems). The overall total is 54 pasted pages.
After Buson’s passing, his pupils appraised Buson’s autographed haikus and further enhanced them by adding drawings to help fund the marriage of Buson’s daughter, Kuno. The works were collectively organized into a set known as the “Bride’s Hand”, with the folding screen shown just one example. Although the inclusion of red “O” and “へ” (pronounced ‘ehh’) signs at the beginning of the poem are said to reflect Buson’s own confidence in his work, the disparity that emerges between these and the haikus Buson wrote after the Meiji Era offers interesting and valuable insights to those researching the poet.