Saigyō

Saigyō (born Satō Norikiyo, 1118-1190) was a Japanese poet and Buddhist monk of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods. He wrote waka, the courtly poetic form of his day, and his work matters because it reflects the shift of power from the old court aristocracy to the samurai clans.

Born in Kyoto into a noble family, he served as a guard to the retired Emperor Toba in his youth. In 1140, at the age of 22, and for reasons that remain unknown, he left worldly life to become a Buddhist monk, taking the religious name En'i. He later adopted the pen name Saigyō, meaning "Western Journey", a reference to Amida Buddha and the Western Paradise.

He spent long periods living alone as a hermit in Saga, Mount Kōya, Mount Yoshino, Ise and other places. He is best known, however, for his long journeys through northern Honshū, which produced travel poems that Matsuo Bashō would later take up in The Narrow Road to the Interior. He was a close friend of Fujiwara no Teika.

His style departed from the Man'yōshū and the Kokin Wakashū, with their word play and elegant diction. In the poems that came to appear in the Shin Kokin Wakashū, the voice is more sober: fewer verbs, more nouns, repetition and a somber tone. Faced with the turmoil of his age, and with Buddhism thought to be in decline during the age of Mappō, his verses seek loneliness (sabi) and sadness (kanashi), without giving up the beauty of nature. Many of his poems express the tension between the Buddhist ideal of detachment and his love of the natural world.

He died at Hirokawa Temple in Kawachi Province, present-day Osaka Prefecture, at the age of 72. His legacy is twofold: he inspired Lady Nijō, who as a child dreamed of writing a similar travel book after reading his work, and Bashō, who looked back to him as an artistic model. His blend of Buddhist faith and contemplation of nature remains his most recognizable trait.