Bruce W. Wardropper 1919-2004

Bruce Wear Wardropper, eminent Hispanist and Professor of Romance Languages at The Johns Hopkins University early in his career, died on January 6, 2004, in Durham, North Carolina. He is survived by his wife, Nancy Palmer Wardropper, who received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1985; by his son, Ian Bruce Wardropper, Chairman of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and by his daughter-in-law, Sarah McNear, and granddaughter, Chloe. At the time of his death he was the William Hane Wannamaker Professor Emeritus of Romance Studies at Duke University. But some of his fondest memories were of the early years at Hopkins, where the young professor served an apprenticeship under the tutelage of formidable senior colleagues.

Bruce Wardropper was born in Leith (Edinburgh) Scotland on February 2, 1919, but received most of his early formal education in England at the County High School at Braintree in Essex and at King Edward's School in Birmingham. He was awarded a scholarship to Downing College, Cambridge in 1936, where he began to read for the Medieval and Modern Languages Tripos, in French and Spanish. The University of Cambridge awarded Wardropper the B.A. degree (Hons.) in 1939 and the M.A. degree in 1942. In 1940, the British Government sent him to teach French and Spanish at Wolmers School in Kingston, Jamaica. There he published his first scholarly articles in Hispanic Review. Wardropper's critical acumen, clearly evident in these early efforts, caught the attention of editor Miguel Romera-Navarro, who offered him a fellowship to pursue the Ph.D. in Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania. Wardropper successfully completed his degree under the supervision of Otis H. Green, who directed his dissertation on the origins of the auto sacramental .

In 1949, Wardropper accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Romance Languages at The Johns Hopkins University. His new colleagues included the distinguished scholars Henry Carrington Lancaster, Emile Malakis, Anna Granville Hatcher, and Edward Williamson, as well as the internationally-known exiles, Leo Spitzer and Pedro Salinas. Wardropper flourished in the challenging environment of post-war Hopkins. As was expected of assistant professors, he defended his work-in-progress before the Philological Club. He composed reviews for a variety of prestigious scholarly journals but also found time to write for the Baltimore Evening Sun. He translated his own work and that of at least one senior colleague. In the fall of 1951, The Hopkins Review included an "anonymous" English version of Pedro Salinas' essay "Lorca and the Poetry of Death," which in fact was translated by Bruce Wardropper. Wardropper followed this translation with another, this time of Salinas' short story "The Breakfast," for The Hopkins Review (Winter, 1953). And, during his first five years at "The Hopkins," Wardropper also published two books and twelve scholarly articles. Each of these early studies displays the rigorous logic, lucid prose and stunning insights that would characterize his mature scholarship.

Bruce Wardropper began to make his mark on Hispanism during his tenure at Hopkins. He also left his mark on MLN, as he recalled in a 1986 letter to the editor of the Hispanic Issue:

For many, many years until his death the old MLN was largely the creature of Henry Carrington Lancaster. I must have told you about his unsystematic way of editing it. A large wooden box was attached to the door of his office, which was always left open. When he approved a "note," he dropped it into the box. Then, when it was time for a number to go to the printer, one of the printer's men would drop by and pull out from on top sufficient copy to make up the number, leaving the older submissions to languish forever in the box. I was too much in awe of Lancaster to propose a different procedure.

I was an "associate editor" 1951-1955 and 1959-1960; I was "general editor" 1961-1962. My year as...