In 1639 the Tokugawa shogunate expelled most Portuguese traders and missionaries, tightening the maritime restrictions later known as sakoku. The policy limited European contact while allowing carefully controlled trade through the Dutch and Chinese at Nagasaki. This was not total isolation, but a deliberate reshaping of cultural exchange, religion, commerce, and political authority.

Tokugawa Japan's restricted foreign contact coincided with the growth of urban literary forms, including haikai, popular prose, theatre, and printed guidebooks. Writers such as Ihara Saikaku and, later, Matsuo Basho worked in a world where local travel, seasonal observation, and vernacular wit flourished beside Chinese and Buddhist learning. The policy helped turn attention inward, giving Japanese poetry new energy in everyday speech, place, and ritual.