Proposing a poetics of opposition in the Haikai of Kobayashi Issa

Haikai poet Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828) has long been simplistically understood as a modern poet, obscuring the anticanonical aesthetic within his work. In this thesis, the author argues for a poetics of opposition in Issa's work. Through close, comparative readings of Issa and his predecessors, Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694) and Yosa Buson (1716-1783), the author identifies the ways in which Issa's human-centered haikai directly oppose conventional aesthetic expectations.