Ihara Saikaku, born in 1642 to the…

1682 CE

Ihara Saikaku, born in 1642 to the wealthy merchant Hirayama Tōgo in Osaka, had first studied haikai poetry under Matsunaga Teitoku, and later studied under Nishiyama Sōin of the Danrin School of poetry, which emphasized comic linked verse.

He had begun later in life to write racy accounts of the financial and amorous affairs of the merchant class and the demimonde.

These stories cater to the whims of the newly prominent merchant class, whose tastes of entertainment lean toward the arts and pleasure districts.

From the age of fifteen, Saikaku had begun to compose haikai no renga (linked verse).

At the age of twenty Saikaku in 1662 had become a haikai master and, under the pen name Ihara Kakuei, had begun to establish himself as a popular haikai poet, developing his own distinctive style by 1670, relying on the use of colloquial language to depict contemporary chonin life.

During this time Saikaku also owned and ran a medium sized business in Osaka.

He had in 1673 changed his pen name to the one we recognize today; however, the death of his dearly beloved wife three years later had had an extremely profound impact on Saikaku.

In an act of grief and true love a few days after her passing, Saikaku started to compose a thousand-verse haikai poem in a matter of twelve hours.

When this work was published it was called ‘Haikai Single Day Thousand Verse’ (Haikai Dokugin Ichinichi).

It was the first time that Saikaku had attempted to compose such a lengthy piece of literature.

The overall experience and success that Saikaku received from composing such a mammoth exercise has been credited with sparking the writer’s interest in writing novels.

However, shortly after his wife’s death, the grief-stricken Saikaku had decided to become a lay monk and began to travel throughout Japan, thus leaving behind his three children (one of whom was blind) to be cared for by his extended family and his business by his employees.

He began traveling extensively after the death of his blind daughter.

Returning to Osaka in 1677, Saikaku had learned of the success his thousand-verse haikai poem had received and, from this point forward, pursued a career as a professional writer.

Saikaku had initially continued to produce haikai poetry, but by 1682 he had published his first of many fictional novels, ‘The Life of an Amorous Man’.

Scholars have described numerous extraordinary feats of solo haikai composition at one sitting; most famously, over the course of a single day and night in 1677 at the Sumiyoshi Shrine at Osaka Saikaku, Saikaku is reported to have composed at least sixteen thousand haikai stanzas, with some rumors placing the number at over twenty-three thousand five hundred stanzas; the scribes, unable to keep pace with his dictation, just counted the verses.