Born on June 10, 1923, Guillermo Luís Guitarte grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received his doctorate from the Universidad de Buenos Aires in 1949 with the title “Profesor de enseñanza secundaria, normal y especial en Letras” (Instructor of standard secondary education, with a specialty in Language Arts). After graduating, Guitarte pursued postdoctoral studies in Spanish philology at the Universidad de Madrid for three years. From 1951 to 1961, he was a research assistant in the Universidad de Buenos Aires’ Instituto de Filología Románica. During his time there, Guitarte taught a course on Spanish Medieval Literature (1952) and was an adjunct professor of Hispanic Philology (1952-1961). He concurrently held the position of professor of Hispanic Philology at the National University of the South, Bahía Blanca (1960-1961). Following this tenure, Guitarte spent one year at the prestigious Instituto de Caro y Cuervo in Bogotá, Colombia teaching Hispanic American Philology and Linguistics.

Guitarte relocated to the United States to become a visiting lecturer at Harvard University in 1963. Guitarte joined the Romance Languages Department at Boston College as an Associate Professor of Spanish in 1964. Boston College became Guitarte’s permanent academic home. He was awarded tenure in 1966 and later appointed to full Professor in 1972.

Guitarte’s three decades of teaching at Boston College spanned a variety of courses, including Latin American literature, medieval Spanish literature, and Spanish philology. Guitarte’s specialty was in historical linguistics and his work on that and dialectology won him recognition and praise from the international linguistic community. This community included such scholars as Enrique Anderson Imbert, Roman Jakobson, Yakov Malkiel, and Erich Von Richthofen. Guitarte’s distinguished career awarded him notable honors, including the Order of Andrés Bello from Venezuela and Corresponding Membership in the Academia Argentina de Letras.

On June 30, 1989, Guitarte became Professor Emeritus at Boston College. He took advantage of his position to continue teaching and research. According to Professor of Spanish Dwayne Carpenter, “[O]nly three days before his death, he requested that several dictionaries be taken to his hospital room, since, as he energetically affirmed, ‘No se puede trabajar sin diccionarios’ [One cannot work without dictionaries]” (BC Faculty Files).

Guitarte died on April 9, 2000.

Sources: Guillermo Guitarte File. Boston College Faculty Collection. University Archives.