In Memoriam Antony Higgins, 1964–2001

IN MEMORIAM ANTONY HIGGINS, 1964-2001 Menos solicitó veloz saeta destinada señal, que mordió aguda, agonal carro en la arena muda, no coronó con más silencio meta, que presurosa corre, que secreta a su fin nuestra edad. A quien lo duda fiera que sea de razón desnuda, cada sol repetido es un cometa. Confiésalo Cártago, ¿y tú lo ignoras? Peligro corres, Licio, si porfías en seguir sombras y abrazar engaños. Mal te perdonarán a ti las horas, las horas que limando están los días, los días que royendo están los años. Luis de Góngora y Argote T hose of us who read and teach Spanish poetry may have read Góngora’s sonnet countless times, but in confronting the death of Antony Higgins, we are all Licios, caught unprepared for the swift, cruel bite of his loss. For his colleagues at Duke, his presence was too much like a comet—not Góngora’s ominous omen, but a brief flare of light gone before we fully saw it, before we came to value its luminosity; perhaps before we really looked. Fieras de razón desnudas, we protest the injustice of life, that his should be cut off in his prime, just when he might have enjoyed well-deserved rewards for his good work, a home of his own, the pleasure of a non-commuting marriage. To say that Tony’s work was good is a flat understatement. He was a rising scholar of the first order, a dedicated teacher and a generous colleague. His first visit to Duke as a job candidate was a good introduction to his intellect and to his character as well. His lecture, on his reading of a criollo sublime in the Rusticatio mexicana of Rafael Landívar, showed him to have theoretical sophistication and cultural acumen equal to his erudite facility with the Latin of that text. When his concept of the sublime was challenged by tough questions following the lecture, Tony met them with critical dexterity and with the courage of his intellectual convictions. CALÍOPE Vol. 8, No. 2 (2002): pages 95-97 96 Margaret R. Greer D He displayed his generosity as a colleague even before he arrived at Duke. I was serving as Acting Chair for a year in which too many faculty were on leave; given Tony’s experience as a professor at the University of New Mexico from 1994-1999, I asked him if he would consider taking on the position ofAssociate Director of Undergraduate Studies his very first year. He agreed, and fulfilled the job so conscientiously that we were delighted to have him as Director of Undergraduate Studies the following year. A month or two after he arrived, I also saw dramatic evidence of his dedication as a teacher. An undergraduate student came to ask me to sign an application for a Rotary Fellowship to work in one of the Andean countries. She had a hazy idea for a project and a looming deadline. I suggested that she ask Tony for some advice on strengthening her proposal before I signed it. She had never met him, but went off to make an appointment. Rather than quick advice, Tony must have given her a short course in Andean history, for she returned a few days later with a beautifully detailed and well-documented proposal that was all but guaranteed to win the fellowship she sought. Although Tony only taught at Duke two years, the courses he taught and his mentoring enriched the intellectual experience of students at every level. Students who took his graduate seminar on “Epistemology and Representation: Luis de Góngora and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz” were so impressed with his dedication to improving their knowledge and critical skills that they wrote a special letter to the chair, to be sure that his outstanding teaching would be recognized. They praised his positive, constructive manner of commenting on their work, including page-long critiques on their final essays, with detailed suggestions for improving arguments and additional bibliography they might use to expand their ideas. Beyond that, Tony always made himself...