An Analysis of John Keats’s "On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer"

Keats is one of the major poets of the Romantic Revival of the early 19th century. Along with Byron and Shelley he forms the trio of the younger romantic poets. Keats was greatly fascinated by classical literature comprising the poetry of Homer and Virgil. His emotional reacting to Homer’s poetry is conveyed in his early sonnet ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’. However, despite his love of Greek lore and his interest in classical literature, Keats is thoroughly a romantic poet. Keats developed his own romantic theory of poetry and expressed it in his poem ‘Sleep and Poetry’, just as Wordsworth and Coleridge had formulated their romantic theory of poetry in the preface to ‘Lyrical Ballads’ about two decades ago.

No poet could have owed his education more completely to the English poets than did John Keats. His knowledge of Latin was slight--he knew no Greek, and even the classical stories which he loved and constantly used, came to him almost entirely through the medium of Elizabethan translations and allusions. In this connexion it is interesting to read his first fine sonnet, in which he celebrates his introduction to the greatest of Greek poets in the translation of the rugged and forcible Elizabethan, George Chapman: -- Keats's noble sonnet “On first looking into Chapman's Homer " shows the impression made by this translation on one possessed of the finest poetic susceptibilities.

John Keats

George Chapman, the translator of Homer's Iliad, was a contemporary of Shakespeare's.  'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer,' Keats compares reading translations of poetry to awe-inspiring experiences such as an astronomer discovering a new planet or explorers first seeing the Pacific Ocean.  One evening in October 1816 Keats read the works of Homer in the translation of the Elizabethan poet George Chapman. He did this in the company of Charles Cowden Clarke, son of his former master and his lifelong friend. That Keats had a monumental experience is clear from “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”

Somewhat like a true Petrarchan sonnet (Petrarchan rhymes scheme generally rhythm of iambic pentameter: abba abba cdcdcd) this poem also clearly divides the treatment of the theme between the octave and the sestet. In the octave Keats sets the background while the sestet describes the effect on him of his experience.

In the first half of the octave Keats speaks of his wide study of Western literature, which he characterizes as “realms of gold”. Keats’s metaphor gives us an insight into his attitude towards literature. The ‘goodly states’ and ‘Kingdoms’ are the poet’s territories they have marked out as their own in the infinite area of the English or Western languages. However, these territories are held by poets not insolently as Kingdoms are held but as a sign of their loyalty towards Apollo, the ancient classical god of poetry. This is a sign of Keat’s literary piety for we know that Keats like Shelley was not a Christian poet:

“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.”

The second half of the octave extends the metaphor of the kingdom of poetry to tell us that Keats had heard about Homer’s epics although he had never read them. Homer is traditionally recognized as the first epic poet of Europe just like Valmiki and Vyasa were of India. They can be considered pure and original because they did not borrow their images from other poets. Homer knew and understood human nature dispassionately. His understanding was clear and unclouded by doubts, distractions and fears. Besides, 1-Iorner was the monarch of poets deserving the exalted title of ‘serene’. It is at the end of the octave that Keats tells us about the cause of his translocation i.e. his reading (with Charles Cowden Clarke) of Homer in Chapman’s translocation. The octave structurally is not divided from the sestet as it ends in a colon:

“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:”

Having told us about the background of his poem in the octave Keats turns to communicate his enjoyment of Homer to us in the sestet. This is done through two unforgettable images. The first of these is that of a professional astronomer into sc sight a new planet has moved in. The second is that of a discoverer such as Herman Cortez who conquered Mexico for Spain and became the first western adventurer to enter Mexico City. Historically, however, it was Vasco Nunez de Balbao who was the first European in 1513 to stand upon the peak of Darien in ma. It is significant that Keats does not name any astronomer such as Galileo had discovered new satellites of the planet Jupiter. It would be in keeping with Keats’s piety to infer that in referring to ‘some watcher of the skies’ he is making use of the primitive figure of speech of periphrasis. If the images help Keats in communicating his peculiar feeling or flavour of the sense or meaning the rhythm of verse gives further density by suggesting the right tone and unfolding the intention while reemphasizing his meaning or sense, and feeling:

“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 has been called a poet of the senses. The abstract idea of the discovery of a planet gives joy that is cerebral but the sight of the seascape from the peak in is more sensual and akin to Keats’s character. The choice of Keats’s imagery in this sonnet and marrying it to the appropriate rhythm clinches the success of the poem. ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ has, no wonder, become a felicitous record of Keats’s unforgettable personal experiences of an encounter with the father of European poetry that was Homer.

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