Geoffrey Kirk

Geoffrey Stephen Kirk, () was a British classicist who served as the 35th Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge. He published widely on pre-Socratic philosophy and the work of the Greek poet Homer, culminating in a six-volume philological commentary on the ''Iliad'' published between 1985 and 1993.

Born into a middle-class family in Nottingham, he began studying classics at Clare College, Cambridge but joined the Royal Navy during World War II. He was deployed to the Aegean Sea as part of the Levant Schooner Flotilla and distinguished himself through his command of modern Greek. His service, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, became the basis for his 1997 memoir ''Towards The Aegean Sea''.

Kirk began his career as a lecturer and fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge in the 1950s. He also held professorships at Yale and Bristol University. In 1974, having gained a reputation as a leading Hellenist through the publication of his first major study (''Heraclitus: the Cosmic Fragments'', 1954), he succeeded Denys Page as the Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge. After his retirement in 1983, he dedicated himself to his ''Iliad'' commentary but began to suffer from depressive illness.

Early life

Geoffrey Stephen Kirk was born in December 1921 in Nottingham. His parents were Frederic Kirk, an educational administrator at Northampton Polytechnic and World War I veteran, and his wife Enid. Having spent part of his childhood in the Hertfordshire town of Radlett, he was educated at the independent Rossall School in Lancashire. In 1939, he won a scholarship to study classics at Clare College, Cambridge.

Military service and return to Cambridge

In 1941, after only one year at Cambridge University, Kirk volunteered to join the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. His supervisor had been Robert Rattenbury, later called by Hugh Lloyd-Jones "a sound scholar but by no means an inspiring teacher". When Kirk said he was leaving to join the Navy, Rattenbury remarked ‘Good Heavens! Well, I don’t suppose I shall be seeing you again!’

Kirk served in the Levant Schooner Flotilla, an Allied naval organisation operating in the Aegean Sea. He rose to command a caïque, one of the Aegean fishing boats which were used by the Allies to stage landings on the Greek coast. Having learnt some modern Greek, he distinguished himself through his communication with Greek resistance forces and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in August 1945. Later in life, he reflected on the events of his wartime service in a 1997 memoir entitled ''Towards The Aegean Sea''.

After the End of World War II