South-Central Renaissance Conference

Noting the 500th anniversary of the birth of Michelangelo, the South-Central Renaissance Conference held its twenty-fourth annual meeting 6-8 March 1975 at Baylor University, with the Baylor University Academic Council for the Fine Arts as host. The scheduled Thursday afternoon and evening activities included films on "Florentine Architecture of the Renaissance" and "Michelangelo: The Medici Chapel"; an address, "The Status of Style," by Nelson Goodman of Harvard University; and a concert of Renaissance music in the Armstrong Browning Library.

Friday morning, following a welcome by Abner V. McCall, president of Baylor, the program listed Edward O. Doughtie (Rice) as presiding and included as presentations: "Chapman's Duke of Byron and 'Apollo's Virtue'," Mary Williams (Murray State); "The Death of Cloten and the Life of Britain," David Middleton (Trinity); "Shakespeare's First Period -Cymbeline," Andrew S. Cairncross (Richmond, Ky.). The second session, chaired by Frederick de Armas (LSU) provided: "Ronsard and Saint-Amant on the Theme of Winter: Two Approaches to the Humanistic Spirit," Jacques F. Malet (UC-Santa Barbara); "Some Reflections on the Sources and Composition of Phineas Fletcher's Apollyonists," William B. Hunter (UH); and "Some Misapprehensions of Christian Typology in Recent Literary Criticism," David S. Berkeley (OSU). The traditional combined luncheon and business meeting, with Maurice L. Shapiro (Tulane) presiding, featured early dance music and dances, followed by conference president Shapiro's reading of a report reflecting the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America and a brief report by Patrick G. Hogan, Jr. (UH), SCRC's delegate to the Southern Humanities Conference. After the luncheon, excerpts from King Lear were presented at the Baylor Theater.

In the afternoon session, chaired by Norman K. Farmer (UT-Austin), papers included: "George Herbert, Poet of Spiritual Desolation," Vincent B. Leitch (Mercer); "Milton's 'Thorn in the Flesh'," Gary A. Stringer (USM); "The Inaugural Production of the Play of San Hermenegildo, Seville, 1580," Armando Garzon-Blanco (LSU); "New Light on an Early Tudor Mass: Avery Burton's Missa Ut Re Mi Fa Sol La," Lester D. Brothers (NTSU). The conference banquet, with Marcus W. Orr (Memphis) presiding, was accompanied by music by the Collegium Musicum and followed by a main address illustrated with many slides: "The Dilemma of Stylistic Change," Frederick Hart, McIntire Professor of History of Art, University of Virginia.

On Saturday morning, Don Swadley (UT-Arlington) chaired a session including: "The Law of Treason and the Earls of Gloucester in King Lear," Raymond V. Utterback (Georgia State); "Report on An Annotated Bibliography of Edmund Spenser, 1937-1972, second edition," Waldo C. McNeir (Oregon); "Ben Jonson's Use of the Visual in Volpone," Frances Nicol Teague (UT-Austin). The last session, with George C. Pittman (Howard Payne) presiding, provided: "Joseph Hall's Mundus Alter et Idem and the Lucianic Tradition," Leonard D. Tourney (Tulsa); "Donne's 'Valediction: forbidding Mourning' and the Golden Compasses of Alchemical Creation," Eugene R. Cunnar (New Mexico SU); and "Toward a New Definition of Love in Caelica," Alice Korach (UT-Austin).

Additional attractions of the conference included a display of Renaissance drawings and books in the Moody and other libraries, "The Brownings and Renaissance Italy" in the Armstrong Browning Library, and "Opus Donatelli: Photographic Studies of a Renaissance Monument" in the Kinsinger Gallery. J. R. Smith, of the Baylor art department, chaired the local arrangements committee. President of the 1976 SCRC will be Marcus W. Orr (Memphis), who as editor of Explorations in Renaissance Culture announced the publication of Volume I of that new scholarly annual collection. The 1976 meeting of the SCRC will be at the University of Oklahoma.

Patrick G. Hogan, Jr.

University of Houston