ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER - JOHN KEATS

 On First Looking into Chapman's Homer - John Keats

John Keats, the youngest of the romantic poets, was born on 31 October 1795 in London. He was educated at Enfield School. His was a tragic story in the sense that he suffered many calamities during his very short life. In 1804 his father was killed in a riding accident, and six later his mother died of consumption which in those days was an incurable disease. In 1818 his brother George along with his wife emigrated to America. A few months later another brother Tom died of consumption. His disappointment in love with Fanny Brawne whom he loved passionately aggravated the family disease to which he himself had fallen a prey. After his boyhood he never had home of his own and had to move from one lodging to another. Finally to regain his lost health he went to Italy where he died on 23 February 1821. 

Some of his famous poems are ‘Endymion’, ‘Lamia’ and the fragmentary ‘Hyperion’. More famous are the odes of which five are often referred to as the ‘great odes’. They are To a Nightingale, On a Grecian Urn, To Psyche, To Autumn and On Melancholy. The most famous of his sonnets is ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’. However ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is considered to be his most perfect poem.  

Poem:

Much 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 stared at the Pacific – and all his men

Lool’d at each other with a wild surmise –

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

I have read quite a lot of literature. I have in particular read the works of many west European authors. I had heard much about Greek literature and its greatest poet Homer. But I did not have the good fortune to read his great works for the obvious reason that I did not know the language. I was able to read Homer only in George Chapman’s English translation. It was really a free ad beautiful translation. After reading the translation I was overcome with joy and wonder. My joy was similar to that of an astronomer who discovered a new planet after watching the sky, through a telescope, for hours together. To use another comparison, my joy was like that of Cortex when he saw for the first time the great Pacific Ocean. He saw the ocean standing on a peak in Darien.

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