As someone who has experienced the original “shiraberu jugyo” on which Prof. Kônoshi’s portion of the workshop was modeled, I was reminded again of how important that my experience of that class has been for me. I am very glad that my students and colleagues were able to get a sense of the course from Prof. Kônoshi’s presentation. His fundamental point was a very basic pedagogical one: if one does not go through the ‘heavy lifting’ of searching for an answer oneself but simply relies on explanations in recent commentaries and reference works, then one cannot be said to have understood an image, an allusion, or a turn of phrase. It is inspiring for me to see how Prof. Kônoshi’s intellectual concerns for recasting the old concept of ‘Chinese influence’ in more productive terms as a common transregional cultural space have developed out of, and remain intertwined with, his whole-hearted commitment to training his students.

A striking subsidiary message of the presentation concerned the temporality of sources for literary study. We tend to limit the role of later works to questions of reception or literary influence, but Prof. Kônoshi’s careful tracing of the “yoru no nishiki” image (KKS 297) in post-Kokinshu commentaries (especially those on the Wakan rôeishu) served as a reminder that later sources can provide invaluable insights into the networks of ideas and associations that underlay earlier usages. This does not mean a rejection of literary historical concepts of periodization or development of genres and topoi, but it does encourage us to be more aware of cross-temporal continuities and the opportunities they present for interpretation of earlier works.

Prof. Saitô’s presentation was also tremendously thought-provoking and informative. Like other students of early Japanese history and literature, I’ve grown accustomed to the role played by second-degree quotation of Chinese classics, not from the original works but from classified encyclopedias like the Yiwen leiju or Chuxueji. But Prof. Saitô made me realize how much broader and deeper the world of leishu is. In addition to providing an invaluable overview of their history and development, he used close reading of a passage from the Yiwen leiju to show how valuable these works are for learning how to read literary Chinese sources.

Comparison to original passages in works like the Zhuangzi revealed not only how much the wording and narrative elements had been transformed, but also how many of these changes could be traced to stylistic demands. It was fascinating to see how powerful the influence of parallelism was, especially in the later, more literarily oriented leishu. In Prof. Saitô’s evocative wording, the parallel style served as a “filter” that affected even the content of the entries. This means that we need to rethink the process of ‘excerpting’ that was fundamental to constructing these works. It is also impetus to further reconsider the nature of the ‘original work’ in premodern intellectual culture.

It has been a long time since I attended such a productive and inspiring workshop. I am deeply grateful to Prof. Kônoshi and Prof. Saitô, as well as the other members of the “Jodai-Bungaku in East Asian Classics” project, for making this great experience possible by taking time out of their busy schedules to visit us in New York.