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Matsuo Bashō's The Narrow Road To The Deep North

957 Words4 Pages

Throughout time, literature has had the power to connect readers around the world by providing them with insight into different cultures. Readers may come together by analyzing different texts and how they represent different backgrounds and give readers from a different culture a new perspective. Matsuo Bashō, a haikai master, provided readers with an insight into Japanese culture by depicting his travels around Japan in his work “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”. In the text, Bashō depicts his journey with the use of prose and haiku. Most importantly, Bashō educates readers by demonstrating the Japanese culture’s value for impermanence, the idea that time is transient. By including the idea of impermanence in his text, the writer is educating readers who may have never been exposed to the term, thus giving insight into his own culture. By analyzing the prose and haiku in Matsuo Bashō’s “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”, it is evident that the author is giving readers an insight to Japanese culture by depicting the culture’s value for impermanence. First and foremost, by taking …show more content…

In this work, the author does a magnificent job of representing his culture which allows readers to gain new knowledge regarding a culture they were not exposed to before. When I read Bashō’s work, I became fascinated by the concept of impermanence and the Japanese culture’s focus on it. Today, many people are too focused on the past or the future instead of realizing that time will always go on and bring new experiences. Also, individuals should educate themselves when it comes to cultures that aren’t their own and literature has the power give readers that understanding. Bashō’s work of art will continue to offer a beautiful representation of the Japanese culture that enthralls readers

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