Basho (1644-94) is perhaps the best-known Japanese poet in both Japan
and the West, and yet there has been remarkably little serious
scholarship in English on his achievement. This book is intended to
address that virtual void by establishing the ground for critical
discussion and reading of a central figure in Japanese culture, placing
the works of Basho and his disciples in the context of broader social
change. Intended for both the general reader and the specialist, Traces
of Dreams examines the issues of language, landscape, cultural memory,
and social practice in early modern Japan through a fundamental
reassessment of haikai - popular linked verse that eventually gave birth
to modern haiku - particularly that of Basho and his disciples. Traces
of Dreams explores the manner in which haikai both appropriated and
recast the established cultural and poetic associations embodied in
nature, historical objects, and famous places - the landscape that
preserves the cultural memory and that became the source of authority as
well as the contested ground for haikai re-visioning and remapping.