John Keats (1795-1821). On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1909. The Book of Georgian Verse

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William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer

By John Keats (1795–1821)


MUCH have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands 1 have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told	5
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman 2 speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;	10
Or like stout Cortez 3 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.

Note 1. Western islands: Prof. Bronson remarks (English Poems, 1907), “Keats’ reading was limited for the most part to the poets of England, the westernmost country of Europe, as Greece is the easternmost.” [back]

Note 2. Chapman: George Chapman, the Elizabethan poet and dramatist, was born in 1560 and died in 1634. His translation of Homer was brought out during the years 1598–1616. [back]

Note 3. Cortez: Balboa, not Cortez, discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513. “Keats,” says De Sélincourt, “either consciously or unconsciously transferred the glory to Cortez, whose portrait by Titian had much impressed him.” [back]

CONTENTS · GLOSSARY · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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