Mukai Kyorai

Japanese poet

Mukai Kyorai (向井去来, 1651 – 8 October 1704) was a Japanese haiku poet, and a close disciple of Matsuo Bashō.

Family and character

A physician's son, Kyorai was born in Nagasaki to a samurai family.^[1] Fond of the martial arts, he was after his death described as having "a soft part and a hard part at the same time".^[2]

His wife Kana-jo and sister Chine-jo were also notable haiku writers.^[3]

As poet

Kyorai connected with Bashō in the 1680s, at the time when the latter was developing his theories of sabi, by which Kyorai was strongly influenced.^[4]

In 1691 he was one of the compilers, together with Nozawa Bonchō, of the Sarumino (Monkey's Straw Raincoat) Bashō-school collection. After Bashō's death he produced Kyoraishō, a rich source for the ideas of, and anecdotes about, his master.^[5]

Notes

^ Kyorai
^ R H Blyth, A History of Haiku Vol I (1963) p. 144
^ R H Blyth, A History of Haiku Vol I (1963) p. 216-7
^ Makoto Ueda, Matsuo Basho (1982) p. 171
^ Carter, Steven. Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology Stanford University Press, 1993. ISBN 9780804722124. p376