Matsuo Bashō was born in 1644 in Bashō's birth house. A Japanese poet of the Edo period, Bashō became a master of the haiku, a short form of seventeen syllables which he raised to an art. Born into a samurai family, he moved to Edo, now Tokyo, where he taught poetry and took his pen name from a banana plant at his hut. In his later years he made long journeys on foot around Japan, and recorded them in travel diaries mixing prose and poetry, of which The Narrow Road to the Deep North is the best known. His famous haiku about a frog jumping into an old pond is among the most celebrated in Japanese literature. He died in Osaka while travelling.
Before and after
- 8 January 1642Death of Galileo Galilei
- 25 December 1642Birth of Isaac Newton
- 1643Barometer
- from 23 February 1643 to 30 August 1645Kieft's War
- 1644Birth of Matsuo Bashō
- June 1644The Manchus take Beijing and found Qing rule
- from September 1644 to July 1645Sieges of Taunton
- from 23 June 1645 to 1 January 1669Cretan War of 1645-1669
- 21 June 1646Birth of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 17th century.