This book uses the haikai verse and paintings of the brilliant, innovative artist Yosa Buson (1716-1783) as a focal point from which to explore how Japanese writers competed for artistic authority in a time when popular responses to economic, technological, and social changes were creating the beginnings of a modern literature. The first part of the book discusses Buson's role in the Bash? Revival movement, situating his haikai in the context of the social networks that writers of his time both relied on and resisted. The second part explores Buson's "hokku," linked verse, and "haiga" (haikai painting). The book concludes with a discussion of Buson's reception in the modern period, and includes translations of his principal works.