On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer
On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer (John Keats)
1. 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.
These lines form the part of On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer written by John Keats. Keats was one of the major poets of the romantic school of poetry. He was a poet all embracing sensuousness. Poetry to him was not a spiritual vision as with Wordsworth, nor an emancipating vision as Shelley, but a joy wrought out of sensations. In the present poem, he records his reactions on first looking into Chapman’s version of Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey.
The poet says that he has been told of many places and countries. He has also listened to the stories of Homer who was an illustrious poet of Greece. As the poet describes, Homer was as if it were a king in the realm of Greek poets who distinguished himself by writing two great epics-Illiad and Odyssey. Chapman was a poet and dramatist of the Elizabethan England who rendered these two works in English. But according to Keats his translation lacks the grandeur and delicacy of the original work.
These lines express the true voice of the feeling of Keats in simple, sensuous and passionate language.
2. 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
Or,
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
These are the concluding lines from the poem entitled On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer written by John Keats. Keats was a great romantic poet whose greatness consists more in his promise and potentiality rather than in his achievement. His poems are marked by pictorial beauty, sensuous touches and structural unity. His poetry has an infinite wealth of details. The details are meant to evoke in the readers an immediate response of eyes and ears. Each syllable and phrase is charged with associations and echoes. In the present poem, he records his reactions on first looking into Chapman’s version of Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey.
The poet is filled with a sense of amazement at the sight of Chapman’s English version of Homer’s works. Just as a man is surprised to see the presence of a new planet in the sky, Keats was seized with wonder to see the works of Chapman. Secondly, he compares himself with Cortez who was looking at the Pacific ocean with his eager eyes from the top of Darien, a mountain. Cortez was not the Spanish explorer and conqueror, but one of his companions Balboa, who first saw the Pacific ocean from a peak in Darien, the Isthmus of Panama.
These lines are characteristic of the poetry of Keats. Here, his poetry becomes highly allusive and poignànt. His language is simple, sensuous and passionate.
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