#60: On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

The use of imagination by one of the great Romantic poets, John Keats

This poem is a metaphor, that is, it describes something in a way that is not literally true but helps explain an idea. So, when I read the first line, I should not imagine that John Keats has physically travelled a great deal. He has travelled in his mind, in his imagination. The eloquent grace of Keats’s poem also reflects back the glory of the origin of his ‘mind-travel’, in this case a translation of Homer’s epics by George Chapman. In like vein, I will seek to represent the impact on me in the same manner as on Keats when he first opened the book.

Awe. Unimaginable awe, holding Keats spell-bound for days on end, exultant in his exposure to the work of a poet whose vision, scope, pace, and intellect he sought to match. Keats succeeded; his own poem is a glittering gem that sparkles even more brightly for its tightness and density.

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 star'd at the Pacific—and all his men

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Keats characterizes the speaker – who has been reading Chapman’s Homer – as an explorer, as if bravely discovering new worlds, though really in his imagination through the power of literature. (The French philosopher, Xavier de Maistre, visualized a similar effect in 1790 in his story ‘Voyage autour de ma Chambre’). The speaker begins: ‘Much have I travell’d in realms of gold’; given the metaphorical sense of this poem, ’realms of gold’ not only describe the wealth of ancient Troy, but also perhaps refer to those expanses of a person’s mind that are discovered by literature. Gold symbolizes a kind of intellectual and emotional richness that comes with reading, and it speaks to the way that books can provide readers with knowledge and experience outside of their everyday lives. Note how there are many ‘l (ell)’ and ‘ld (eld)’ sounds in the first four lines. These examples of alliteration assist in the smooth flow of the poem, the almost hypnotic assonance that makes us smile and take comfort.

The words at the end of lines 6 and 7 are supposed to rhyme, according to the pattern of sonnet structure Keats has chosen. Maybe they did when Keats composed the poem, but now we pronounce demesne as duh-MEIN, rather like domain, whereas serene is still pronounced suh-REEN. Keats goes on to say he had often heard of the wide expanse regarded as Homer’s demesne but did not know it until he read Chapman’s description of the plains of Troy, and the islands visited by Odysseus.

Then Keats chooses two more remarkable metaphors to express his surprise whilst reading Chapman; firstly, that of an astronomer who discovers a new planet; and secondly, Cortez, conqueror and exploiter of the Aztecs, looking upon the Pacific Ocean from a peak in Darien. (Darien is a National Park in Panama, very remote and impenetrable). The impact on Cortez of his view of the Pacific Ocean was so profound that his fellow crew members ‘look’d at each other with a wild surmise’. Metaphors allow the writer room to surprise, even to exert power.

Through Homer’s writing, Keats is able to visit different times, cultures and locations that otherwise would be inaccessible. The poem makes a strong case that all readers should use literature to travel in the same way. Keats has almost certainly not travelled a great deal physically. But figuratively, in his imagination, Keats could have reached the end of the universe.

This access is most commonly provided by reading. George Chapman must have known this; by the end of the 16th century when Chapman was writing at the age of forty, there may have been as many as 200 million books in circulation, only one hundred and fifty years after the invention of the printing press. Translations into English cannot have been common, however; most books published were in Latin. Yet Chapman saw a sufficiently good-sized opportunity here that he became the first translator of Homer’s epics into English. He translated not into prose, but into poetry – harder still! And he took a gamble that the works would prove attractive to a broader audience than only the readers of Ancient Greek. Thank goodness he took such a challenging decision; firstly, he assisted in the proliferation of English translations of Homer; and secondly, he did so with such panache that he caught John Keats’s attention two hundred years later. To great effect.

Chapman was a direct contemporary of William Shakespeare, and indeed sought to rival Shakespeare as poet and playwright, yet it was as a translator that he attained lasting renown. I have always been accommodating of translations; if I cannot speak another person’s language, it is my responsibility if I then cannot enjoy that person’s poetry. How helpful, therefore, when a third person translates the poem. As there now exists a third interpretation! Usually, the action is directly between the poet and me, the reader. But much interest lies in another’s view of the potential meaning of the words, and how that person sets this meaning, this translation, down on paper. Ted Hughes became good at this, translating Ovid’s Metamorphoses into poetic English some time ago. When handled by an experienced and sensitive poet, an unreachable work, Lost in Translation, say, can become a new work of creative art, Found in Translation!

There is evidence that this happened in Chapman’s case. No great success attended his work as dramatist, poet, or playwright. It is as translator that he will live in memory. To what extent will his memory have been augmented by his affiliation to John Keats’s poem On First Looking….? Probably substantially. To be associated with one of the greatest poems ever written cannot harm one’s legacy!

Here is Chapman’s translation of the first seven lines of Book I of The Iliad:

Achilles’s baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that imposed

Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls losd

From breasts Heroic – sent then farre to that invisible cave

That no light comforts; and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave.

To all which Jove’s will gave effect, from whom first strife begunne

Betwixt Atreides, king of men, and Thetis’s godlike Sonne.

The magnetic attraction is perhaps not so much the quality of the poetry but the quality of the imagination of John Keats as he became captivated by the story two hundred years later. A weak, sickly, and undernourished man, soon to die of tuberculosis, he was not rich. But he possessed some grateful and generous friends, such that he was supported to the time of his death and wrote some of the most graceful and compelling poetry ever written. For all his disadvantages, he made his one immeasurable advantage - his imagination - count to the end of time.