Minutes of the Comediantes Meeting: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1953 3:45-5:15 P.M. Palmer House, Chicago

room for them here. The whole problem of suelta editions offers a wide field for investigation . FOOTNOTES 1.BAE 7, pp. xxv-xxvi; and 14, pp. 656-57. 2.Julia Martinez, E.: "Aportaciones bibliográficas: Comedias raras existentes en la Biblioteca Provincial de Toledo." Bol. de la R. Acad. XIX (1932), 569. 3.Barrera, Catálogo, p. 686. 4.BAE 52, p. 546. 5.Op cit., p. 573. 6.BAE 14, p. 668-69. 7.Barrera, p. 705. 8.Ibid., p. 698. 9.Die Calderón Literatur, p. 26. 10.BAE 7, xxvi. 11.Catálogo, p. 683. 12.Acad. N. Ill, p. xxvii, note 1. Minutes of the Comediantes Meeting Tuesday, December 29, 1953 3:45-5:15 p.m. Palmer House, Chicago The meeting was attended by the following : Fluegge, Rose Bartsch, Leavitt, Hesse, McCrary, Bishop, McCready, Peters, Hamilton , Ruth Lee Kennedy, Mabel Harlan, Ada Coe, Keller, Antonio de Soto, Rothman, Heilman, Parker, Levy, Castellano, Roaten, Jones, MacCurdy, Saenz, Oeschläger, Wardropper , Whittey, Wade, Rozzell. (Van Home, Sherman Brown, James Swain, Thornton Wilder had written notes expressing their regret of not being able to attend; a few who made reservations were not present.) Wade was Chairman; Rozzell, Secretary; and MacCurdy, Third Member. After self-introduction of the members, Hesse reported on the status of the Bulletin. At his request, John Keller, University of North Carolina, was appointed Assistant Editor . One of his functions will be to mail the Bulletin to subscribers directly from Chapel Hill, where it is printed. (Hesse has done a very fine job of editing our publication ; one of us here takes the liberty of saying so for the record.) The Nominating Committee (Anibal, Hilborn, Tyler) nominated the following slate of officers for 1954: Chairman, Bruerton ; Secretary, Ruth Lee Kennedy; Third Member, Leavitt; and Miss Caroline Bourland , Honorary Chairman. They were all elected unanimously. These officers will choose the subject for the 1954 meeting in New York. The subject for discussion was an outgrowth of "Motifs," the topic of the previous meeting at Boston. Initiative and planning on the part of Gerald Wade facilitated the specific aim of the Chicago meeting : consideration of a motif-index for the comedia. Notices had been sent out November 1, suggesting that the members of Conference II study John Keller's "Tentative Classification for Themes in the Comedia" (Bulletin, Fall, 1953) and try it out for themselves by applying it to La vida es sueño. In opening the discussion Wade reminded the group that it should end up with an opinion regarding the feasibility of adopting Keller's outline for doing a comedia motif-index. Arnold Reichenberger, to whom Keller's manuscript had been sent, presented a paper (read in his absence by Rozzell) on "Some Informal Remarks Concerning Motifs, Themes, and Topoi"—published in this issue . Keller followed with a discussion of the application of his proposed outline as applied specifically to La vida es sueño. After the group voted an expression of thanks to Keller and Reichenberger for their special contributions, the remainder of the session was given to discussion from the floor, with a closing summation by the Chairman. The majority of those present were not in favor of undertaking a comprehensive motif-index as a group project. For those who did not attend, the following anonymous snatches of quotations will provide a sampling of the main objections, doubts, and queries that were voiced: "It would be a tremendous task. How many comediantes could free themselves from other work in order to take part in it?"—"A staff of fifty 8 worked on Thompson's Motif-Index."— "Can a criteria be made so clear that a classification could be had distinguishing themes, motifs, etc."—"No two persons could read a comedia and see the same motif."— "After we made it, how valuable would it really be? "—"More needed is to know how these themes or motifs function in the realm of dramatic art; aesthetic understanding is the need, rather than a scientific classification ."—"Just the action alone of a play, disregarding theses and concepts, is not important enough."—"I should prefer to carry a few principal themes, rather than motifs, through a large number...