All Scholars

Raised in Evesham, England, in a lower middle-class family, Edwards completed his undergraduate degree under the Plautus scholar William Beare (1900-63) and spent two years in the British army working in the artillery corps. He returned to Bristol to study Greek with H.D.F. Kitto (1897-1982), the translator of Greek drama, Edwards was convinced by the two to pursue a master's degree.

While pursuing his MA at Bristol, in 1953, Edwards accepted a research grant to study with T.B.L. Webster (1905-74) at University College London. The subject of his research was the early history of Dionysius, relevant in the wake of Michael Ventris' decipherment of Linear B earlier in that year (Dionysius' name—Di-wo-nu-so-jo—was discovered on the tablets). Edwards’s subsequent research focused on the connection between literary references and visual depictions of Dionysius (and generally, the Dionysian) in early red-figure pottery. This was the subject of his first publication.

Edwards subsequently received a grant to study with Anthony Raubitschek (1912-99) at Princeton University. There, he would finish work on his MA thesis. Edwards believed Raubitschek to be responsible for his hiring as a professor at Brown University. Edwards received his MA the year after being hired by Brown, teaching classes on the Iliad, the philosophy of Cicero, and Latin. The course on the Iliad was his first sustained engagement with Homer, the subject that would form the core of his subsequent scholarship. Unfortunately, in 1962, he was not awarded tenure at Brown and left at the end of academic year. During this period, he published on a variety of other topics (Stoicism, the style of Propertius, and so on)—work that grew out of his teaching at Brown.

At Queen's University Edwards published on the topic of Homeric formulae. He was influenced by James A. Notopoulos' (1905-67) work on epichoric formulae, and subsequently encountered the work of Milman Parry (1902-35), partly through Notopoloulos' work on parataxis in Homer. He was likewise influenced by Howard N. Porter (1916-93), who wrote on early Greek hexameter, as well as Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910-50) who wrote on the localization of metrical word-types in epic hexameter. Edwards' subsequent research in this area would focus on how formulae worked within epic hexameter. Most of this work was published in the 1960s, but he continued to publish on the topic through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s.

Edwards left Queens for Stanford University, where he taught classes in the introductory freshman program, as well as "Epic in Translation," something that influenced his subsequent work, especially his book Homer: Poet of the Iliad(1987). As chair, he oversaw the creation of the endowed Stanford in Greece Fund, which (despite administrative changes over time) still forms the basis for funding Classics students' travel to the Mediterranean. He also oversaw the creation of the Webster Fund, which continues to fund the annual Webster Lecture, delivered at Stanford.

It was largely at Stanford that Edwards made contributions on two Homeric questions. The first was on Type Scenes—that is, formalized, repeating scenes that appear throughout epic. The other question, related to type scenes, was story-patterns and “neoanalysis,” an approach that analyzes Homeric epic alongside other lost works in the epic cycle, on the assumption that literary motifs in the former were borrowed from the latter. Edwards first covered the topic in a 1990 article, "Neoanalysis and Beyond."  Neoanalysis formed part of Edwards' perspective in Homer: Poet of the Iliad, as well as in his 1991 commentary on the Iliad (the fifth in Cambridge's six-volume series, overseen by G.S. Kirk). Finally, he contributed an article on neoanalysis (along with others) to the Wiley-Blackwell Homer Encyclopedia (ed. Finkelberg) in 2011.

Following his retirement in 1991 Edwards taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as Visiting Professor in 1993 and 1994. Here, he taught undergraduate classes on the Iliad and on Greek tragedy. This was his last teaching post. He continued to write, publishing Sound, Sense, and Rhythm: Listening to Greek and Latin Poetry in 2002. He wrote articles for compendia such as A New Companion to Homer (Brill, 1997) and A Companion to Ancient Epic (Blackwell, 2005).

In 2003, Edwards retired to Villa Marin, a retirement community in San Rafael, CA. There, he taught informal seminars on western culture, classical literature, and Greek history to fellow residents (though he preferred the term "reading group").