Minutes Of The Detroit Meeting

Abstract

what is really a secondary ideological theme, affords an illustration of the displacements of the axis so familiar to students of seventeenth century painting. In the final scene the play reaches its intended climax and the unification of all its motives. The formal fusion of all four plots is achieved by presenting on the stage for the first and only time the representatives of each of them. The people now represent the combined themes of the injustice of the nobles and the life of the common people, while the Catholic Monarchs are the visible incarnation of the idea of the divine right of kings. The defense of the king and church, along with the denunciation of the injustice of the nobility against the people, all are presented as one theme epitomized in the person of Fernando, the monarch whose right to rule has been conferred by God himself . The Baroque ideal, therefore, is attained —a complete synthesis of all the elements of form and ideology into an ecstatic vision that points to the ultimate end of Baroque thought and ambition and of Baroque art, that is, to God. This summary investigation of form in the Baroque theater suggests the following conclusions: 1)Wölfflin's concepts, if translated into the specific terms appropriate to the drama, are as valid for the Spanish theater of the seventeenth century as they are for the plastic arts of this period. They should be equally effective in providing a basis for the judgment of all other Spanish literary genres of this time, and the proof of their usefulness in explaining the literature of Italy, Germany , England and even France is proceeding . 2)The Baroque is not a "brutto artistico " as Croce would persuade us. It possesses a large body of art works that are not inferior to those of any other period, but which rather adhere to an ideal of beauty which, when taken in its entirety, is peculiar to that period. 3)There exists no body of esthetic doctrine that can fairly be referred to as an absolute esthetic. Classical and post-Classical principles are unserviceable in judging a body of art works that does not lend allegiance to them. Mere tradition cannot serve as an unfailing guide to the beautiful. 4) The investigation affords evidence which, when added to that offered by WoolfAin , suggests that all of the arts of a period are possessed of substantially the same formal qualities capable of being analyzed in a way similar to the one employed here. It is possible , therefore, to discover analogies between the arts and to make use of them in criticism. Minutes Of The Detroit Meeting by Bruce W. Wardropper Johns Hopkins University The 1951 meeting of the Comediantes was called to order by the Chairman, Jack Parker, in Room 1304 of the Hotel Sutler in Detroit, Mi-rhigan, on Friday, December 28 at 2:00 P.M. Other members present were Professors Ashcom, Bishop, Castellano, de Chasca, Flueggi, Goggio, Harlan, Hespelt, Hesse, Hilborn, Inch, Levy, Mayo, McCready , MacCurdy, Reichenberger, Rozzell, Stevens, Treviño, Wade, Wright, and Wardropper . ABSENT MEMBERS. The Chairman read messages from Alice H. Bushee and Max Oppenheimer, Jr. expressing their regret at being unavoidably absent. For his part the Chairman was sorry that it had proved impossible to schedule the meeting so as to avoid conflicts. ELECTION OF OFFICERS. Officers for 1952. were elected as follows: Chairman, Harry W. Hilborn (Queen's) ; Secretary, Benjamin B. Ashcom (Wayne) ; Third Member , Charles H. Stevens, Jr. (Rutgers). ELECTION OF EDITOR. Everett W. Hesse (Wisconsin) was elected editor of the Bulletin for a fourth year. It was decided that henceforth editors will be elected for a term of two years. REPORT ON BULLETIN. Professor Hesse appealed to members to contribute articles of four to eight typewritten pages to the Bulletin, and to send him interesting items for inclusion in the section "Cape and Sword." He urged members to send longer articles, in Spanish, to Estudios (Duque de Sexto, 32, Madrid). He presented his 1951 financial report for the Bulletin: Income, $63.00; Expenditure, $40.58; Balance, $22.42. Edmund de Chasca asked subscribers to send in rare items of bibliography that might...