| Native Name: | 松永 貞徳 |
| Native Name Lang: | ja |
| Other Names: | |
| Birth Date: | 1571 |
| Death Date: | 1654 |
| Era: | Edo period |
| Children: | Matsunaga Sekigo |
| Father: | Matsunaga Eisyu |
was a Japanese haikai and waka poet. As a teacher of Teimon Haikai, he spread haikai throughout Japan. He was considered by R H Blyth to be the most important of Matsuo Bashō's predecessors.[1]
Teitoku played a significant role in regularising the rules for Haikai, and in raising its importance and status as a genre.[2] He specialised in elegant wordplay, and in subject-matter reflecting the Chinese classics and waka.[3]
Through his disciples in the Teimon school, he influenced succeeding generations of haiku poets: thus for example Bashō's first haiku teacher, Kigin, came from his school.[4]
Teitoku's approach was criticised by the Danrin school for shallowness and excessive wordplay.[5] One member, Bashō himself, is reported to have said of its founder, Nishiyama Sōin, that, if not for him, "we would still be licking the slaver of aged Teitoku".[6]