Renga

Renga (連歌^?, collaborative poetry) is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry. A renga consists of at least two ku (句^?) or stanzas. The opening stanza of the renga, called the hokku (発句^?), became the basis for the modern haiku form of poetry.

Two of the most famous masters of renga were the Buddhist priest Sōgi (1421–1502) and Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694).

Renga was one of the most important literary arts in pre-modern Japan. The earliest surviving renga is in the Man'yōshū, where Ōtomo no Yakamochi and a Buddhist nun (尼, ama^?) made and exchanged poems with sound unit counts ("on") of 5-7-5 and 7-7. This two-verse style is called tan-renga (短連歌^?, "short renga"). Other styles are called chō-renga (長連歌^?, "long renga"). A comparable, though less evolved, tradition of 'linked verse' (lián jù 連句 - the same characters as 'renku') - evolved in Chin-dynasty China, and this Chinese form may have influenced Japanese renga during its formative period. However, there are major differences between the two, the Chinese having a unity of subject and a general lightheartedness of tone, neither of which characteristic is present in Japanese renga; furthermore, the history of Japanese poetry shows renga as an apparently natural evolution.

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