KEATS, ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER

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KEATS,
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO
CHAPMAN'S HOMER
 

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.

 The imaginative, poetic power of Chapman's translation of Homer moved John Keats. He wrote this sonnet--after spending all night reading Homer with his friend, Leigh Hunt. “To communicate how profoundly the revelation of Homer's genius affected him, Keats uses imagery of exploration and discovery. In a sense, the reading experience itself becomes a Homeric voyage, both for the poet and the reader.”Keats wrote this poem in October 1816.  Chapman's Homer first apppeared in its entirety two hundred years earlier in 1616.