Richard P. Martin

Richard P. Martin was raised in Boston and earned his A.B. (in Classics and Celtic studies), A.M. and Ph.D. (in Classical Philology) from Harvard. He has taught Greek, Latin, and Irish literature at Stanford for 24 years as Isabelle and Antony Raubitschek Professor in Classics. Previously, he taught for eighteen years at Princeton. He is the author of Healing, Sacrifice, and Battle: Amechania and Related Concepts in Early Greek Poetry (1983); The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad (1989); Myths of the Ancient Greeks (2003); Mythologizing Performance (2020); and Classical Mythology: The Basics (2nd. edit. 2022). Other relevant publications include studies of translations by Irish writers Peter Fallon and Pádraig de Brún, and close readings of early Greek poets (Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Stesichorus, Archilochus et al.). His Sather Lectures at Berkeley, on the sociology of Greek comedy, form the basis of a forthcoming book Comic Community, while his Martin Lectures at Oberlin College will be published as Homer Abroad. When not writing, teaching or commuting, he strolls through San Francisco.