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Harvard file photo
At a gathering of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 6, 2025, the subsequent homage to the life and contributions of the late Walter Jacob Kaiser was recorded in the enduring archives of the Faculty.
Walter Jacob Kaiser, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of English Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, led an existence filled with rich culture, insight, and achievements.
In 1963, Kaiser released “Praisers of Folly: Erasmus, Rabelais, Shakespeare,” an examination of Renaissance humanism, philosophical thought, playful jesters, and cosmopolitan ideas based on his dissertation. The following year marked his edition of the essays of Michel de Montaigne in John Florio’s English. Kaiser subsequently created translations, beginning with three substantial poems from modern Greek by the Nobel Prize-winning George Seferis in 1969, followed by three volumes of prose from French by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first woman elected to the Académie Française: “Alexis” (“Alexis ou le traité du vain combat”) in 1984; “Two Lives and a Dream” (“Comme l’eau qui coule”) in 1987; and, in 1992, “That Mighty Sculptor, Time,” a collection of Yourcenar’s essays on which he cooperated. His talent as a translator was widely acknowledged, notably by the critic Philip Thody in the Times Literary Supplement in 1992. Kaiser’s 1983 essay, “The Achievement of Marguerite Yourcenar,” is a significant contribution to English critiques of that author.
Kaiser dedicated a considerable part of his career at Harvard to rejuvenating Villa I Tatti, the University’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies situated in Florence, Italy, housed within Bernard Berenson’s estate and gardens in the Mensola valley northeast of the city. The decision to appoint Kaiser to lead this institution was logical. As an undergraduate in 1953, he met Berenson — “I was intimidated,” he later recalled — but the two grew familiar during walks. Thirty-five years later, Walter became the director of I Tatti. Throughout his leadership from 1988 to 2002, he strengthened its academic programs and revitalized its garden, properties, individuals, and initiatives.
As noted by a member of the Memorial Minute Committee, a visiting scholar at I Tatti in 1991 during Kaiser’s directorship, “he was impeccably suited for the role. Guiding daily lunches with elegance and humor, he consistently adeptly directed discussions towards the diverse and fascinating research endeavors of the Fellows. . . . Walter cherished the gardens and ensured they were maintained at their finest throughout each season. His Italian and French were impeccable. He could converse about anything with anyone. He was cherished and respected by staff and fellows. He presided like a joyful Renaissance Prince of the Church, bestowing his blessings upon his guests. He possessed the skills to raise funds and maintain order such that a very complex organization appeared to operate seamlessly. Walter was intelligent, insightful; he delighted in laughter and sharing that joy with others!”
The current director, Alina Payne, reflects on how significantly she benefited from Kaiser, “both as an academic and from the community he managed to develop . . . at I Tatti — the camaraderie, the location, the grounds, and its solid financial foundation.” He supervised the growth of the library and photo collection. His endeavors were highlighted by the creation of a fund named in his memory to support the Biblioteca Berenson at Villa I Tatti and, in 2018, by the unveiling of its newly refurbished central space as the Walter J. Kaiser Reading Room.
Kaiser also initiated a library of a different nature: the I Tatti Renaissance Library. This esteemed collection of Latin literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific works with corresponding English translations, distributed by Harvard University Press, now encompasses over one hundred volumes. He also contributed to the Press’s Villa I Tatti Series, which publishes research on topics linked to Bernard Berenson, his associates, interests, and collections, collaboratively editing, with Michael Mallon, a selection of book reviews by the distinguished art historian John Pope-Hennessy.
Above all, Kaiser esteemed interdisciplinarity. Under his guidance, I Tatti concentrated on the Italian Renaissance, a focus that has since broadened to include the wider Mediterranean. For more than seventy years, I Tatti has facilitated scholarly work across numerous fields, including literature, history, art history, philosophy, and musicology. Kaiser referred to the resulting dialogue among the disciplines as “the greatness of I Tatti.”
Prior to his directorship of I Tatti, Kaiser instructed courses covering Shakespeare, Spenser, Ariosto, and Montaigne. He animated his lectures on Shakespeare with analysis, criticism, and a remarkable ability to portray characters in various voices. The memory of his portrayals of Falstaff, Justice Shallow, and Justice Silent in “Henry IV, Part 2,” is unforgettable. When one student inquired what, aside from linguistic talent, enabled Shakespeare to become a great poet, Kaiser responded, “He was receptive to every type of experience.”
From 2009 to 2015, Kaiser authored essays and reviews for The New York Review of Books. His topics showcased his expansive interests: Renaissance and American art, connoisseurship, the art of translation, Paul and Julia Child’s roles in the Office of Strategic Services, Arezzo, Florence, Shakespeare, modern European painting, Caravaggio, Piero della Francesca, Janet Ross, and Bernard Berenson. In these essays, as in all his endeavors, he connected knowledge to living as much as to the academy.
Born on May 31, 1931, in Bellevue, Ohio, the child of a grocer, Kaiser achieved the title of page in the U.S. Senate in 1944, then received scholarships to Phillips Academy and Harvard, where he earned his A.B. magna cum laude with highest honors in 1954 and his Ph.D. in 1960. He published poetry in The Harvard Advocate and The New Yorker. Appointed assistant professor of English and comparative literature in 1962, elevated to associate professor in 1965, and granted tenure in 1969, he was awarded a named professorship in 1999. From the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, he chaired the Department of Comparative Literature three times, totaling eight years.
Before his divorce in 1981, Kaiser and Neva Goodwin Rockefeller had two children. He is survived by his daughter, Miranda Kaiser; her two daughters; and two daughters from his son, David Kaiser, a valiant climate advocate who passed away in 2020. Walter Kaiser departed peacefully in New York City on January 5, 2016.
Respectfully submitted,
Robert Kiely
Katharine Park
Jan Ziolkowski
James Engell, Chair
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