On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer
On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer - context Summary
Discovery of Chapman’s Homer
Written in 1816 as a sonnet celebrating Keats’s encounter with George Chapman’s translation of Homer, the poem describes a sudden literary revelation. Keats frames his discovery as an opening of a vast, previously inaccessible realm, likening his amazement to an astronomer spotting a new planet and to explorers beholding the Pacific. The poem marks a formative moment in his self-education and his embrace of classical epic imagination.
Read Complete AnalysesMuch have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
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