Mountain Cabin

The bold and unreserved innovator, Saigyo significantly updated the poet's vocabulary and introduced the image of the wanderer into Japanese poetry for the first time. Even during his lifetime, legends were woven about Saigyo's travels, and after his death, pilgrimages began to be made to the places he had sung about. A special place in the poet's work is occupied by the book of poems "Mountain Cabin," whose lyrical hero, a poet-philosopher who voluntarily chose exile, mourns his forced solitude, enjoys the beauty of the surrounding nature, and admires the changing seasons, saturated with the colors of blooming cherries and the majestic calm of mountain peaks. Saigyo's poetry is understandable and simple, but behind this lies the refined elegance and mastery with which the artist wove individual words and lines into cohesive works.