Kobayashi Issa

Kobayashi Issa is born in 1763 at Kashiwabara in Shinano, a post town on the north road, into a farming family. His mother dies when he is three, a stepmother comes when he is eight, and at fourteen he is sent to Edo to work. He learns haikai in the Katsushika school, from Chikua, Genmu and Somaru, and signs himself Haikaiji Issa. His father dies in 1801; the quarrel with his stepmother and half brother over the land ends in 1813, and he settles at Kashiwabara. He marries at fifty-two; his children die young, and his wife Kiku in 1823. Shichiban nikki, his day-book, runs from 1810 to 1818; Oraga haru holds the year 1819. Fire takes the village in 1827; he dies that winter in the storehouse that survived. Close to twenty thousand of his verses are counted.

Spring

• You little sparrows left without
• O frog, so skinny and thin

Autumn

• Granted this dewdrop world is but

Sources

1. 日本大百科全書 and 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, 一茶, on Kotobank
2. デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, 小林一茶, on Kotobank
3. デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 七番日記 (Shichiban nikki), on Kotobank
4. デジタル大辞泉 and 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, おらが春 (Oraga haru), on Kotobank
5. 一茶記念館 (Issa Memorial Museum, Shinano), 俳人小林一茶の生涯
6. 信濃町 (Shinano town, Nagano), 小林一茶旧宅
7. 島田青峰 (ed.), 一茶選集 (Issa senshū, 1925), 自序, pp. 1-5, National Diet Library
8. 勝峯晋風 (ed.), 一茶旅日記 (Issa tabi nikki, 1924), 一茶小傳, National Diet Library
9. 志田義秀, 一茶一代物語 (1935), 年譜 and 終焉, National Diet Library