Dr Adrian Kelly

Academic Background

I did my undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Melbourne, before coming to Oxford in 1998 to do my DPhil under the supervision of Oliver Taplin. That thesis was examined by Malcolm Willcock and Bryan Hainsworth, and published by OUP in 2007. After my doctorate, I held teaching posts at Magdalen, St Anne’s and Balliol, and the Fulford Junior Research Fellowship at St Anne’s (2003–5), and was very briefly employed by the University of Warwick before returning to Balliol as a Tutorial Fellow in 2008. I have recently been editing the Cambridge Companion to Sappho (which is almost done) and trying to find time to work on my commentary on Iliad XXIII for the Greek and Latin Classics series published by Cambridge University Press. I am also participating in a project to translate the Homeric scholia in English (for Cambridge University Press), and co-editing a conference volume with Chris Metcalf entitled Divine Narratives in early Greece and the ancient Near East for Oxford University Press (2020).

Research Interests

I am primarily concerned with the function of tradition and the evolution of early Greek poetry from the 8th-6th centuries BC, and the development of different notions of 'text' during that period. I also write on the relationship between Athenian tragedy and its society in the 5th century BC. My current major project of research is commentary on the 23rd Book of Homer's Iliad for Cambridge University Press, and I am also co-editing (with Patrick Finglass, of Bristol University) the Cambridge Companion to Sappho.

Research Keywords

Tradition, textuality, intertextuality, Greek epic, Homer, Hesiod, Sappho, Stesichorus, lyric, epic, tragedy.

Teaching

Greek literature and language.

Publications

Full Publications: dr_adrian_kelly_full_list_of_publications.pdf

Selected Publications: