A Bibliographical Note

for a year. Addresses: EXPLICATOR, Box 3024 Rivermont Station, Lynchburg, Va.; JOHNSONIAN NEWSLETTER, Philosophy Hall, Columbia University, NYC 27; SHAKESPEARE NEWSLETTER, 749 Franklin Roosevelt Drive, NYC, 9; 17 CENTURY NEWS, Queens College, Flushing 67, N.Y. M.A. theses at Univ. of New Mexico: 1) Ruth Hatch Hartwell, "The Development of the comedia de figurón in the 17 and 18 Centuries," 1952; 2) Maryavis Parson , "The Comic Art of D. Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla in His Comedies of Customs," 1952, under the direction of Raymond T. MacCurdy. The 1952 conference of the Comediantes will be held Saturday, Dec. 27, 2:00-3:30 p.m. (See M.L.A. program for room assigned .) The topic for discussion, as suggested at the 1951 meeting, will be "Motifs." The committee (Harry W. Hilborn, Benjamin B. Ashcom, and Charles Stevens, Jr.) is planning an informal luncheon at noon. Further information will be mailed to members by Harry W. Hilborn, Chairman, who will appreciate early notification of intention to attend. A Bibliographical Note by Arnold G. Reichenberger, University of Pennsylvania It is the purpose of this brief note to call the attention of the Comediantes to two publications concerning the bibliography of the comedia which—to judge from the scarcity of references found—have been largely1 overlooked by bibliographers and editors. The two studies are: Carlos M. Clavería y Miguel Batllori, "Una colección de ediciones de teatro antiguo español en la Biblioteca Provincial y Universitaria de Barcelona ," and Pilar Escofet, "Cuatro piezas de poesía política en títulos de comedias, existentes en la Biblioteca de Cataluña." Both were published in Butlletí de la Biblioteca de Catalunya, VII (1923-1927), pp. 213-331 and 155-212, respectively.2 The Barcelona collection consists of fourteen volumes containing 185 comedias, 2 autos, 3 entremeses, 4 loas, and 2 bailes. Some volumes are complete partes: ll-Escogidas XIX; Ul-Diferentes XXX (Barcelona, 1638; see La Barrera, p. 685); IV-Lope de Vega VIIIj Vl-Escogidas XXXV; IX-Escogidas XVI. The others are made-up volumes consisting of torn out portions of partes and sueltas or entirely of sueltas. The bibliographers give a very detailed description of the volumes containing the sueltas and the portions of partes not easily identified through the known editions. Two indices, of titles and of authors, with careful croes references and bibliographical notes for each play, will be very helpful. The study shows excellent bibliographical workmanship, particularly admirable when we consider that the authors were very young at the time. The publication by Srta. Escofet adds five pieces containing 229 títulos de comedias to that curious genre studied by Restori, Farinelli , Pfandl, and Heaton. The title has been identified almost completely by the editor in the Index, which follows text and commentary. Four of them, dated 1704 (A and B), 1706 (C), and one (1713) added in an Apéndice, discuss contemporary events of national and international politics, employing the comedia titles with a great tour de force. More interesting is the pieza D (1759). It is addressed to Carlos III, at the time of his ascent to the throne and represents nothing less than a small popular treatise on De regimine principum. What is rather illuminating is not so much the number of titles—110—worked in with surprising facility but the fact that, by properly arranging comedia titles, it was possible to produce something like a moral code regulating the behavior of the king and his subjects . It is an indirect—and rather impressive —confirmation of the complete idenfifi- cation of the Comedia with the beliefs of the Spanish people and of the persistence of these beliefs at a period in which elsewhere the Enlightment was in full swing. The convictions of the Spaniards became cristaìlized to such a degree that they found pointed stylistic expression in compact and significant títulos de comedias, often of an almost proverbial character. One need only to cast a comparative glance at the titles of plays of other national theaters to become aware of the fact that the Comedia is probably unique in its profusion of titles designed to drive home ? moral lesson in an obvious...