Chapman's Homer and When I have fears Flashcards
When was “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” written?
1816, Keats is only 20 years old.
What form does Chapman’s Homer take?
Petrarchan Sonnet
What is the rhyme scheme of Chapman’s Homer?
Octave: a b b a a b b a
Sestet: c d e c d e
What is the octave dominated by in Chapman’s Homer?
The theme of exploration and the metaphor or poet as literary adventurer.
What theme does the sestet develop in Chapman’s Homer?
The theme of discovery, with the use of similies, through which Keats conveys his sense of wonder.
How does Keats convey the sense of openness to a vast sea of wonder in Chapman’s Homer?
With long vowels: “wild” “surmise” “silent”
What are the dominant images in Chapman’s Homer?
The dominant images are those of travel and discovery: ‘states and kingdoms’, ‘islands’, ‘new planet’, ‘the Pacific’.
How does Keats present himself in Chapman’s Homer?
Keats presents himself as one of the explorers of the past, giving his explorations in the realms of literature a similar sense of adventure and heroism.
What image is particularly poignant in Chapman’s Homer?
The image of explorers confronted with a hitherto unknown natural phenomenon is particularly powerful. The poem’s final image of Cortez frozen into awestruck silence at the sight of the Pacific Ocean’s vastness is vividly dramatic – especially when contrasted by his men’s ‘wild surmise’ as they try to guess what can have elicited such a response from their ‘stout’ leader.
When is Keats’s schooling evident in Chapman’s Homer?
Keats’ school reading is evident in his reference to the ‘new planet’ in l. 10. The words echo the vivid description of Herschel’s discovery of the planet Uranus in John Bonnycastle’s Introduction to Astronomy given to Keats as a school prize in 1811.
What is the context of Keats responding to literary art in Chapman’s Homer?
The sonnet is a response to the imaginative power and vision of both Homer, the ancient Greek epic poet, and George Chapman, the Elizabethan poet, who translated Homer into English. The most widely read version of Homer available to readers of Keats’ day had to that point been the one by Alexander Pope, an eighteenth century poet whose rhyming couplet translation, whilst being rational, orderly and controlled, lacked the raw power of the original Greek. When Keats writes about Chapman’s translation as ‘speak[ing] out loud and bold’, he is making a clear distinction between the more muscular style of the Chapman and the elegantly balanced and controlled version of Pope.
How does Keats claim his poetic vocation in Chapman’s Homer?
Poetry is here seen as an empire of the mind, something which sets free the imagination and which is, in fact, an imaginative conquest. The poem marks a turning-point in Keats’ development. The full power of the god Apollo has been revealed to him and there can be no doubt that Keats has found his literary vocation. He has discovered not only Chapman’s Homer but also his true poetic self.
How does Keats use the image of explorers positively?
Keats can use the image of explorers appropriating wealth as a positive metaphor for the riches he has taken from reading Chapman’s translation of Homer. He already describes his previous reading as travelling in ‘realms of gold’: now he is appropriating what had thus far been Homer’s ‘demesne’, just as Cortez (clearly regarded positively in this sonnet) took over the kingdom of the Aztecs and seized Mexico for Spain.
What is the context of riches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were characterised by a quest not only to discover, but to claim and colonise, the riches of new-found lands. Explorers were as much driven by the promise of vast wealth (for example, seeking the fabled land of El Dorado, the golden city and kingdom of the Golden King) as by the excitement of discovery. Though we have a more ambivalent attitude towards this today, in Keats’ era, the consequent wealth of the British Empire from its colonies was a source of pride.
What is the context of Keats writing Chapman’s Homer?
He had spent a night in the autumn of 1816 reading poetry with his friend Charles Cowden Clarke, who introduced him to some of the best passages in George Chapman’s translation of Homer. Keats was delighted with the vigorous language of the Elizabethan; to him, Chapman spoke out “loud and bold.” After Keats left Clarke, around daybreak, he walked to his lodgings, sat down at his desk, wrote his tribute to Chapman, and had a copy of it on his friend’s breakfast table by ten o’clock in the morning. The poem seems to have been composed in the white heat of excitement, in a flash of inspiration. Keats made very few changes in it, but the changes he made show that he realized that inspiration is not enough; it must be followed by critical judgment. Keats’ changes in the poem are all improvements.
