HIROYUKI ETO Introduction Once a month, mostly on a Sunday afternoon, Prof. Shoichi Watanabe and some of his former students, including the editors of this festschrift, meet at a small but cozy French restaurant on the outskirts of Tokyo. This regular meeting is officially called the monthly colloquium of the English Philological Society of Japan, but its actual atmosphere is more like his graduate seminar of English philology I attended at Sophia University. The Society was founded some twenty years ago by Prof. Watanabe and his then graduate students with the purpose of inheriting and developing a unique adacemic tradition. This tradition had been established on the momentous accomplishments of the philological, mythological, and ethnological studies into the pre-christian Germanic and Anglo-Saxon cultural and religious history pursued by Prof. Karl Schneider, who was Prof. Watanabe s Doktorvater at the University of Münster and the Society s first honorary president. Since its foundation, Prof. Watanabe has been devotedly serving and maintaining the Society as President. Before we enjoy pleasant and intellectual conversation over lunch at the meeting, we spend one hour or so reading carefully, i.e., translating word by word, a few paragraphs of Prof. Schneider s monumental work Die germanischen Runennamen (1956) on the cults and rites of the pagan Anglo-Saxons, and discuss what we have appreciated or not fully understood in the text. This is occasionally followed by a brief presentation by participants reporting new findings in their specialized area. Despite his retirement a decade ago, Prof. Watanabe still invites us to this monthly colloquium and continues to inspire, stimulate, and encourage us as implicitly and explicitly as he used to do. We are so deeply grateful for his heart-warming generosity, as well as his never-failing mental and material support to every one of
16 Hiroyuki Eto us, that we have always been mindful that we ought to do something in return. At first we thought we might bring out a special issue of ASTERISK, the Society s quarterly bulletin, for the celebration of his 80th birthday. In fact, however, we hesitated to present collected papers in any form to Prof. Watanabe because a magnificent festschrift had already been dedicated to him on the occasion of his 70th birthday. It was implemented by senior members of his former students and published by a most prestigious Japanese publisher specializing in linguistics. The articles included were submitted by a wide range of contributors his friends, colleagues, students, etc. and dealt with a variety of topics, which proves that Prof. Watanabe is among the most preeminent and reputable scholars of English philology in Japan. The papers and essays presented in that festschrift were written in Japanese with a few exceptions. Taking these facts into consideration, we came to the conclusion that the something must be something greater than merely providing a special issue of the bulletin. Then we decided to be bold enough to publish another festschrift, which should be written in English and German and be published by a European or American publisher in order to call the attention of a wider audience all over the world to Prof. Watanabe s academic achievements and the current level of English philology in Japan, particularly that of historical English studies. Moreover, the second festschrift should be dedicated exclusively by his disciples those who wrote a Master s thesis and/or a PhD dissertation under his mentorship at Sophia University so that they might show the academic progress they have made since graduation to their former teacher. It was not long before the publishing committee was organized, which consisted of the younger generation of Prof. Watanabe s former students among the regular participants in the monthly colloquium. Then the task force began to promote this project and called for papers behind the scenes almost two years ago. As a result of the secret operation, our cherished desire is finally realized, and we are successful in now presenting this volume containing twelve tour-de-force papers constituting three different groups. The first six articles with regard to Old English studies
Introduction 17 definitely attest not solely the excellence of OE scholarship in Japan, but also the uniqueness of their perspective and approach in literary and linguistic research into Anglo-Saxon England. At Prof. Watanabe s graduate seminar, we read without exception either OE texts or German theses on English philology published mostly in the 19th and early 20th century. I remember with great pleasure his always saying that we should not read texts written in modern English at a graduate seminar, but at home by ourselves. Furthermore, he always strongly recommended that we learn to master the German language because knowledge and command of German is a secret key to more comprehensive and profound understanding of various issues in historical English studies. Therefore, all of his apprentices, English majors as they were, made every effort to read German texts as precisely and accurately as German majors, which, without doubt, helped them pursue OE studies. The second section includes three papers regarding English studies from various perspectives. Two of them deal with English phonology from both historical and contemporary standpoints, and the other with theoretical discussion of etymological inquiry. In his general attitude toward language study, Prof. Watanabe always argues for the importance of both diachronic and synchronic approaches. When it comes to answering students questions about English grammar, he insists on the effectiveness of historical and comparative explanations of grammatical phenomena. Meanwhile, in language teaching, he ascribes much greater value to the traditional approach based on reason, custom, and common sense than to new practical methods backed up by modern science and technology. The last section contains three articles focusing on the history of linguistics or the history of ideas, which is another very important aspect of Prof. Watanabe s specialties. His academic career began with his doctoral dissertation on the origin and history of English grammar half a century ago, and since then, he has published a number of theses and books on the history of English studies, the history of linguistic science, and the intellectual history of Europe and Japan. Excellent Anglicist and linguist as he is, Prof. Watanabe is also highly valued in Japan for his critique of civilization with his unique view of
18 Hiroyuki Eto history and culture. Readers will find in these three papers the great influence of his academic qualities. The wide range of topics dealt with in the twelve papers presented in this festschrift thus unequivocally reflects the diversity of interests Prof. Watanabe has pursued in teaching and in his research efforts throughout his scholarly career. His intellectual curiosity and spirit of inquiry will never wither, with the result that we are very proud of calling ourselves his disciples. We will not simply continue to study and teach following our master s example, but preserve and foster the Schneider-Watanabe school in Japan as well. We all know, however, that we will never be able to reach the heights of this intellectual giant and world-famous bibliophile who is practicing intellectual life at the age of 80 surrounded by as many as 150,000 books, including priceless rare books and manuscripts, in his private library. Still, we are honored to dedicate quite humbly this tiny something to our most distinguished and esteemed professor with our best wishes and with his motto inscribed here: Verba volant, scripta manent. Visit the Society s website at <www.philologia.jp> for more information about the English Philological Society of Japan.