206 THE JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES • 82:2 • May 2023 DOI: 10.1215/00219118-10290650 © 2023 Association for Asian Studies WIEBKE DENECKE and LUCAS KLEIN Launching the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature on the 250th Anniversary of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries ABSTRACT This article takes the inauguration of the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature as an opportunity to reflect on today’s role of classical literatures and their importance to the transformation of the humanities. Edited by Wiebke Denecke and Lucas Klein and published by Oxford University Press, the library was established by a gift from Oscar L. Tang and Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu-Tang—a descen- dant of Ji Yun, chief compiler of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (Siku quanshu), and of Xu Guangqi, China’s “first convert.” After detailing how the Library carries on the legacies of both the Complete Library and the Jesuit project of cross- cultural dialogue and translation, the essay showcases how the Loeb Classical Library of Greek and Roman literatures, established a century ago, is both a model and rad- ically different enterprise from recently endowed bilingual classical libraries, includ- ing the Murty Classical Library of India. The article then outlines the vision and hopes for the Hsu-Tang Library, namely, to publish translations of Chinese literature that are both intelligently scholarly and eminently readable and thus deepen and broaden the possibilities of what Chinese literature can mean—also in and for the English lan- guage. Responses to the essay will be considered for publication in a future forum. KEYWORDS Hsu-Tang Library, Loeb Classical Library, Siku quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries), Ji Yun, translation of Chinese literature LITERARY TRADITIONS IN MOTION What is a literary tradition? In the early twenty-first century, we are surprisingly poorly equipped to approach this question wisely. One obstacle is institutional: liter- atures are still typically studied separately by language or nation; and today’s sprawl- ing discipline of comparative literature leans heavily toward the present, putting off the global study of the growth of literary traditions in deep historical time to the unforeseen future. Another obstacle is ideological: twentieth-century hubris still drives the conceptual field around tradition; modernity’s self-congratulatory divorce of world history into tradition versus innovation, premodernity versus modernity, or conservative versus avant-garde, is hard to unthink when speaking of tradition. Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-asian-studies/article-pdf/82/2/206/1936853/206denecke.pdf by MIT LIBRARIES user on 20 September 2024