This report is derived from two compact volumes that I have been fortunate to receive: Annuario degli iberisti italiani (Venice, 1980, eds. Franco Meregalli and Giuseppe Bellini, and Bolletino Informativo e Bibliografico (Pisa, 1984), ed. María Grazia Profeti. I expect two more volumes, presently en route, that will provide information to 1988. The first volume in my possession was a result of preparations for the VII Congress of the International Association of Hispanists held in Venice in 1980. The second is presumably one in a series published every two years, barring lack of funds and bureaucratic red tape.

A study of these volumes yields the following breakdown in numbers of specialization in the different periods of language and literature and in other disciplines generally included in or related to Hispanism.

Romancero and Medieval Literature 27

Fifteenth Century Literature 24

Siglo de Oro and Baroque (16th-17th Centuries) 69

Eighteenth Century 13

Romanticism and Nineteenth Century 27

Modernismo and Twentieth Century 60

Latin American (all periods and countries) 70

History of Language and Literature 7

Philology, Linguistics, Stylistics and Semiotics (only one scholar used a computer) 41

Pedagogy and Bibliography (only one specialization in Commercial Spanish) 17

Related cultures (Luso-Brazilian, Angolan, Gallegan, Catalan, and one scholar of Provençal) 43

History 29

Economics 2

Sociology 1

(Many scholars indicate more than one field of specialization).

These figures will probably surprise no one, nor will the specific topics within each category. I shall, however, list for those four categories having the largest numbers the topics most favored by scholars.

Siglo de Oro and Baroque (16th-17th Centuries)

Lazarillo de Tormes

Mystics, especially Saint Theresa

Tirso de Molina

Lope de Vega

Calderón

Góngora

Quevedo

Vélez de Guevara

General studies of culture and literature, often relations between Italy and Spain

Luso-Brazilian, Galician, Galician-Portuguese, and Catalonian

J. Amado

Camões

R. de Castro

Lins do Rego

J. de Sena

G. Vicente

Accounts of naufragios during Portuguese Expansion

The seca and the Sertão

Studies of Catalonian and Galician-Portuguese literature and culture

It seems appropriate to offer a closer look at the work of one scholar listed in each volume, not merely because he or she is the editor of the volume, but because of the quantity and variety of accomplishments of the scholarship.

Guiseppe Bellini is Professor of Hispano-American literature at the University of Venice. His fields of specialization include Hispano-American literature of the Colonial Period. In this field he has produced a history of Hispano-American literature from preColumbian origins to the present (1970) and a study of the «Good Savage» in Hispano-American literature (1979). He has worked on the theater and novel of the twentieth century in Hispano-America with emphasis on Miguel Ángel Asturias and Pablo Neruda. He has not, however, neglected the poetry of Hispano-America, having studied Neruda extensively and the poetry of the Antilles, for example. Nor has he overlooked the literature of Spain in which he has specialized in the work of Quevedo, including his influence on Hispano-American poetry in this century. Professor Bellini has devoted much effort also to establishing cross-cultural relations, e. g., between African culture and Latin American literature, or between the literatures of Italy and Hispanic America, or the influence of Nicaraguan literature in Italy, or the importance of Italian language and culture in Latin-America.

Another prolific scholar of varied interests is María Grazia Profeti, Professor of Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Verona. She has done much work in the literature of the Golden Age, especially in the theater of Lope de Vega and Calderón. Other prominent figures and genres of the period, such as Santa Teresa, Sor Juana, Quevedo, and Vélez de Guevara, have come in for their share of attention in Professor Profeti's work. She specializes also in the Generation of '27, having studied García Lorca and Buñuel to a considerable extent. Finally, in addition to the compilation of much bibliographical material, Professor Profeti has provided several interesting studies of a more general nature, e. g., on psychoanalysis and literature, by way of techniques and methods for the study of literature (1984), or ways of looking and doing what may turn the spectator into the spectacle, for a semiotic approach to theater (1980).

Despite a decline in the study of Spanish as compared with English, French and German in Italy, there is an active, most productive group of Italian Hispanists who deserve our attention and admiration. Should any reader be sufficiently interested, I shall be pleased to provide more particulars from the two directories in my possession. I expect to be able to furnish additional general information in a future report upon receipt of the directories for 1986 and 1988.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 72, Number 4, December 1989