Name Geoffrey Kirk Died March 10, 2003 | ||
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Books Presocratic Philosophers, The Nature of Greek Myths, Myth: Its Meaning and Funct, The songs of Homer, Homer and the epic | ||
Geoffrey Stephen Kirk, DSC, FBA (; 3 December 1921 – 10 March 2003) was an English classicist known for his writings on Ancient Greek literature and mythology. He was Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge from 1974 to 1984.
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Early life
Kirk was born and grew up in Nottingham, the son of Frederick Kirk, MC. He was educated at Rossall School and Clare College, Cambridge.
Military service
Kirk's time at Cambridge was interrupted by war: he joined the Royal Navy in 1941 and was commissioned as an officer one year later. He spent much of his service in the Aegean Sea with the Levant Schooner Flotilla commanded by Adrian C. C. Seligman. The unit included schooners and caïques engaged in irregular operations in support of Allied special forces. Kirk fought on many Greek islands and along a wide section of the Turkish coast. He was engaged in operations at Tekegas Barnu, Didyma, Icaria and Andros. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) in 1945.
Academic career
After the war Kirk returned to Cambridge, graduated in 1946 and gained a research fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He later became a lecturer and then a reader at Cambridge. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1959 and served as its vice-president in 1972–73. He also held visiting positions at Yale and Harvard. In 1974 he became the 35th Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge.
Later life
Following his retirement, in 1982, Kirk produced a six-volume commentary on the Iliad and updated his book The Presocratic Philosophers with J. E. Raven and M. Schofield.
Kirk had married Barbara Traill in 1950 and they had a daughter, Lydia. In 1975 he married Kirsten Ricks. He was supported by Lydia and four stepdaughters through ill health before his death in 2003.