Editing Haiku (section)

==Exposure to the West==
The earliest Westerner known to have written haiku was the Dutchman [[Hendrik Doeff]] (1764–1837), who was the Dutch commissioner in the [[Dejima]] trading post in Nagasaki during the first years of the 19th century.<ref>[http://kulturserver-nds.de/home/haiku-dhg/Netherlands.htm ''Haiku in the Netherlands and Flanders''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303194021/http://kulturserver-nds.de/home/haiku-dhg/Netherlands.htm |date=2016-03-03 }} by Max Verhart, in the German Haiku Society website</ref> One of his haiku is the following:<ref>Otterspeer, W. ''Leiden Oriental connections, 1850-1940'', Volume 5 of Studies in the history of Leiden University. Brill, 1989, {{ISBN|9789004090224}}. p360</ref>

{{Verse transliteration-translation
|lang = ja

|稲妻の
腕を借らん
草枕

|inazuma no
kaina wo karan
kusamakura

|lend me your arms,
fast as thunderbolts,
for a pillow on my journey.
}}

Although there were further attempts outside Japan to imitate the "hokku" in the early 20th century, there was little understanding of its principles.{{citation needed|date=June 2012}} Early Western scholars such as [[Basil Hall Chamberlain]] (1850–1935) and [[William George Aston]] were mostly dismissive of hokku's poetic value.{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}}

===Blyth===
{{Main|Reginald Horace Blyth}}
[[Reginald Horace Blyth|R. H. Blyth]] was an [[Englishman]] who lived in Japan. He produced a series of works on [[Zen]], haiku, senryū, and on other forms of [[Japanese literature|Japanese]] and Asian literature. In 1949, with the publication in Japan of the first volume of ''Haiku'', the four-volume work by Blyth, haiku were introduced to the post-war English-speaking world.{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}} This four-volume series (1949–52) described haiku from the pre-modern period up to and including [[Masaoka Shiki|Shiki]]. Blyth's ''History of Haiku'' (1964) in two volumes is regarded as a classical study of haiku. Today Blyth is best known as a major interpreter of haiku to English speakers.{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}} His works have stimulated the writing of haiku in English.

===Shimoi===
{{Main|Harukichi Shimoi}}
The Japanese-Italian translator and poet [[Harukichi Shimoi]] introduced haiku to Italy in the 1920s, through his work with the magazine Sakura as well as his close personal relationships within the Italian literati. Two notable influences are the haiku of his close friend [[Gabriele d'Annunzio]], and to a lesser extent, those of [[Ezra Pound]], to whom he was introduced in the early 1930s.<ref>Livio Loi, A Flower With Many Stems: Tradition and Innovation in the Poetry of Sandro Penna [https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=5299&context=theses]</ref> An early example of his work appears in the 1919 novella ''La guerra italiana vista da un giapponese'', which features a haiku by the Japanese feminist poet [[Yosano Akiko]]:

{{Verse translation|italicsoff=y|
''{{lang|it|L'autunno giovane è come un salone della Reggia,
}}''
''{{lang|it|perchè in esso gli alberi, gli uccelli, i fiori e tutte le altre cose
}}''
''{{lang|it|sono placcati di oro}}''
|
The young autumn is like a salon in the palace,
for in it the trees, the birds, the flowers and all other things
are plated with gold.}}

===Yasuda===
{{Main|Kenneth Yasuda}}

The Japanese-American scholar and translator [[Kenneth Yasuda]] published ''The Japanese Haiku: Its Essential Nature, History, and Possibilities in English, with Selected Examples'' in 1957. The book includes both translations from Japanese and original poems of his own in English, which had previously appeared in his book titled ''A Pepper-Pod: Classic Japanese Poems together with Original Haiku''. In these books Yasuda presented a critical theory about haiku, to which he added comments on haiku poetry by early 20th-century poets and critics. His translations apply a 5–7–5 syllable count in English, with the first and third lines end-rhymed. Yasuda considered that haiku translated into English should utilize all of the poetic resources of the language.<ref>Yasuda, Kenneth, Introduction 'The Japanese Haiku' Charles Tuttle Co Rutland 1957 {{ISBN|0804810966}}</ref> Yasuda's theory also includes the concept of a "haiku moment"  based in personal experience, and provides the motive for writing a haiku: {{"'}}an aesthetic moment' of a timeless feeling of enlightened harmony as the poet's nature and the environment are unified".<ref>Otsuiji(Seiki Osuga) Otsuji Hairon-shu 'Otsuiji's Collected Essays on Haiku Theory' ed.Toyo Yoshida, 5th edn Tokyo, Kaede Shobo 1947</ref> This notion of the haiku moment has resonated with haiku writers in English, even though the notion is not widely promoted in Japanese haiku.{{NoteTag|See however, 'Shiki's Haiku Moments for Us Today'.<ref>Hirai, Masako ed.Now to be! Shiki's Haiku Moments for Us Today' (Ima, ikuru!Shiki no sekai) U-Time Publishing, 2003 {{ISBN|4860100409}} [http://terebess.hu/english/haiku/shiki.html]</ref>}}

===Henderson===
{{Main|Harold G. Henderson}}
In 1958, ''An Introduction to Haiku: An Anthology of Poems and Poets from Bashô to Shiki'' by [[Harold G. Henderson]] was published by Doubleday Anchor Books. This book was a revision of Henderson's earlier book titled ''The Bamboo Broom'' (Houghton Mifflin, 1934). After World War II, Henderson and Blyth worked for the [[Occupation of Japan|American Occupation in Japan]] and for the [[Imperial House of Japan|Imperial Household]], respectively, and their shared appreciation of haiku helped form a bond between the two.

Henderson translated every hokku and haiku into a [[rhyme scheme|rhymed]] [[tercet]] (ABA), whereas the Japanese originals never used rhyme. Unlike Yasuda, however, he recognized that 17 syllables in English are generally longer than the 17 ''on'' of a traditional Japanese haiku. Because the normal modes of English poetry depend on accentual meter rather than on syllabics, Henderson chose to emphasize the order of events and images in the originals.<ref>{{Cite book|title=An introduction to haiku : an anthology of poems and poets from Bashō to Shiki|last=Henderson|first=Harold G.|date=1958|publisher=Anchor Books|isbn=9780385052252|pages=viii|oclc=857309735}}</ref> Nevertheless, many of Henderson's translations were in the five-seven-five pattern.