Editor's note

EDITOR'S NOTE This number of the Bulletin ofthe Comediantes contains essays that offer a variety of critical approaches, in addition to the papers from an MLA session from December 2002 on "Back to Basics: What Every Comediante Should Know." The session was organized by Amy Williamsen ofthe University ofArizona and included the participation of William R. Blue, Catherine Connor, James A. Parr, and Laura Vidier. Amy Williamsen has written an introduction to the short essay collection. There is a purposeful informality to the papers, but each of the participants —who range from a recent PhD to Comedia veterans (in the very best sense ofthe term)—reflects carefully on the history and the state of the art of Comedia studies. Those ofus who have been around for a while have observed the beauties offormalism and ofthe numerous branches of the philological tree, the metatheatrical thrust inspired by a little book by Lionel Abel, the impact of structuralism and the various poststructuralisms , the removal ofthe qualifier with regard to literary theory, and new approaches to the relation of text and performance. It is especially appropriate to be able to read (after hearing) the words ofJames Parr, who witnessed a growing interest in early modern Spanish theater during his twenty-six year tenure as editor of this journal and who has become a leading metacritic. There is no question that the writers acknowledge and respect the intimate ties between scholarship and teaching. As we mourn the death in January 2004 of Professor Bruce W. Wardropper, William Hane Wannamaker Professor Emeritus of Romance Studies at Duke University, we note with gratitude not only his truly impressive work on Golden Age literature but also the generations of students whose lives he touched. Some of those former students—Susan L. Fischer, Dian Fox, Margaret R. Greer, Elizabeth Teresa Howe, Christopher Soufas, and BCom, Vol. 56, No. 1 (2004) Teresa Scott Soufas—have written tributes to Professor Wardropper, which we present here. His career was extraordinary, and his legacy will be with us always. E.H.F. ...