Kashima Kikō
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| Kashima Kikō | |
|---|---|
| by Matsuo Bashō | |
| Original title | 鹿島紀行 |
| Written | 1687, Edo period |
| Language | Japanese |
| Genre | Travel literature |
| Form | Haibun |
Kashima Kikō ((鹿島紀行), variously translated as Kashima Journal or A Visit to Kashima Shrine is a haibun travel journal by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, covering his short journey to Kashima Shrine in the Kantō region. According to write-translator David Landis Barnhill, the Kashima Kikō is "most significant for the amusing but complex self-image near the beginning" where Bashō compares his companions to a bird and a mouse before calling himself a mixture of both: a bat.[1]
It was written as a tribute to Bashō's Zen master, Buchhō, and so it contains direct references to enlightenment and the Gateless Gate.[2] The work mostly does not integrate poems into the prose and, instead, presents all the prose in the first half before ending with a series of hokku written by Bashō and his friends.[1]