Ihara Saikaku

1642 – 9 September 1693

Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693) was a Japanese poet and writer of the Edo period, the creator of the ukiyo-zōshi ('floating world') genre of popular fiction. First famous as a prodigiously fast haikai poet, he turned to prose with The Life of an Amorous Man (1682) and went on to write vivid novels and story collections about the merchants, lovers, and townspeople of Osaka.

Comparing
Compare

Lived at the same time

Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Ihara Saikaku.

Life events

Born into a merchant family in Osaka
1642

Saikaku was born Hirayama Tōgo into a well-to-do merchant family in Osaka, the thriving commercial center of Tokugawa Japan.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Birth ✓
Began composing haikai poetry in the Danrin school
c. 1662

Saikaku studied haikai no renga and became associated with the free-spirited Danrin school of Nishiyama Sōin.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Education ✓
Death of his wife
1675

Saikaku's wife died young in 1675, leaving him with three children; he composed a moving thousand-verse haikai elegy in her memory.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Relationship ✓
Turned the family business over to clerks to devote himself to literature
c. 1675

After his wife's death Saikaku left his merchant business in the hands of employees and traveled and wrote full time.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Career ✓
Published The Life of an Amorous Man, founding the ukiyo-zōshi genre
1682

Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko, Saikaku's first work of prose fiction, followed the amorous adventures of its hero Yonosuke and launched the genre of floating-world fiction.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Performed a legendary marathon solo haikai composition at Sumiyoshi Shrine
1684

Saikaku is said to have composed 23,500 verses in a single day and night at the Sumiyoshi Shrine in Osaka, earning the nickname 'the twenty-thousand old master'.

Achievement ?
Published The Life of an Amorous Woman and Five Women Who Loved Love
1686

In 1686 Saikaku published two of his most admired works of amorous fiction, Kōshoku Ichidai Onna and Kōshoku Gonin Onna.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Published The Japanese Family Storehouse, tales of merchant life
1688

Nippon Eitaigura collected stories of how townsmen made and lost fortunes, marking Saikaku's turn to fiction about the economic life of the merchant class.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Died in Osaka at about age 51
9 September 1693

Saikaku died in Osaka; several further collections of his stories were published posthumously by his disciples.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Death ✓