Most of the people, even Japanese, think the poem shows that Matsuo Basho actually experienced and moved to the scene. However, he didn’t see the scene even the frog. The haiku gathering was held at his hermitage Basho-an with a pond. Haiku poets decided a theme at a haiku gathering and it was “frog” at the day. So, Basho had to put the word into a poem.
“Frog” is a spring season word.
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Since there was the pond at the hermitage, he possibly heard the sound of the water. But speaking about “a pound”, he didn’t see it when he composed the poem. According to the record of his disciple Shiko, Basho came up with the words of “A frog leaps in/ And the sound of the water.” before “An old pond”. After polishing, he decided to use “An old pond”.
He created the famous haiku poem in the hermitage and didn’t see the pond. The pond of the poem isn’t reality even there was nearby from him. He made the world of silence which broken by a small creature in his mind.
Furthermore, Basho made a nobel attempt to compose about a frog. Previously, all of the Japanese poets use the word aiming at the effect of the sound of the amphibian’s croaking. It was the first time that the poem which focused on the sound of a splashing that a frog made. The tranquil haiku poem is one of the most “Sabi” poems by Matsuo Basho.
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