On First Looking into Chapman's Homer / Keats

"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" is a sonnet by English Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) written in October 1816. It tells of the author's astonishment at reading the works of the ancient Greek poet Homer as freely translated by the Elizabethan playwright George Chapman. The poem has become an often-quoted classic, cited to demonstrate the emotional power of a great work of art, and the ability of great art to create an epiphany in its beholder.

Background information
Keats' generation was familiar enough with the polished literary translations of John Dryden and Alexander Pope, which gave Homer an urbane gloss similar to Virgil, but expressed in blank verse or heroic couplets. Chapman's vigorous and earthy paraphrase (1616) was put before Keats by Charles Cowden Clarke, a friend from his days as a pupil at a boarding school in Enfield Town. They sat up together till daylight to read it: "Keats shouting with delight as some passage of especial energy struck his imagination. At ten o'clock the next morning, Mr. Clarke found the sonnet on his breakfast-table."

Analysis
The "realms of gold" in the opening line seem to imply worldly riches, until the name of Homer appears; then they are recognized as literary and cultural realms. Of the many islands of the Aegean, the one which bards most in fealty owe to Apollo, leader of the inspiring Muses, is Delos, the sacred island that was Apollo's birthplace. The island-dotted Aegean lies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean; thus when Keats refers to the "western islands" of his own experience, he tacitly contrasts them with the East Indies, the goal that drew adventurers like doughty Cortés and Balboa to the New World, an example of submerged imagery behind the text, which is typical of Keats' technique.

The second quatrain introduces "one wide expanse" that was ruled by Homer, but which was "heard of" rather than known to Keats at first-hand, for Homer wrote in Greek, and Keats, like most Englishmen of his time, was at ease only in Latin. The "wide expanse" might have been a horizon of land or sea, but in Keats' breathing its "pure serene", we now sense that it encompasses the whole atmosphere, and in it Chapman's voice rings out. This sense of fresh discovery brings the reader to the volta: "Then felt I...".

The "new planet" was Uranus, discovered in 1781 by Sir William Herschel, Astronomer Royal to George III, the first planet unknown to astronomers of Antiquity. It was a new world in the heavens.

In point of historical fact, it was Vasco Núñez de Balboa's expedition which were the first Europeans to see the Pacific, but Keats chose to focus on Hernán Cortés; "Darien" refers to the Darién province of Panama. Keats had been reading William Robertson's History of America and apparently conflated two scenes there described: Balboa's finding of the Pacific and Cortés's first view of the Valley of Mexico. The Balboa passage: "At length the Indians assured them, that from the top of the next mountain they should discover the ocean which was the object of their wishes. When, with infinite toil, they had climbed up the greater part of the steep ascent, Balboa commanded his men to halt, and advanced alone to the summit, that he might be the first who should enjoy a spectacle which he had so long desired. As soon as he beheld the South Sea stretching in endless prospect below him, he fell on his knees, and lifting up his hands to Heaven, returned thanks to God, who had conducted him to a discovery so beneficial to his country, and so honourable to himself. His followers, observing his transports of joy, rushed forward to join in his wonder, exultation, and gratitude" (Vol. III).

John Keats simply remembered the image, rather than the actual historical facts. Charles Clarke noticed the error immediately, but Keats chose to leave it in, presumably because historical accuracy would have necessitated an unwanted extra syllable in the line.

In retrospect, Homer's "pure serene" has prepared the reader for the Pacific, and so the analogy now expressed in the simile that identifies the wide expanse of Homer's demesne with the vast Pacific, which stuns its discoverers into silence, is felt to be the more just.

Keats altered "wondr'ing eyes" (in the original manuscript) to "eagle eyes", and "Yet could I never judge what Men could mean" (which was the seventh line even in the first publication in The Examiner) to "Yet did I never breathe its pure serene".

Structure
This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, divided into an octave and a sestet, with a rhyme scheme of a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a-c-d-c-d-c-d. After the main idea has been introduced and the image played upon in the octave, the poem undergoes a volta, a change in the persona's train of thought. The volta, typical of Italian sonnets, is put very effectively to use by Keats as he refines his previous idea. While the octave offers the poet as a literary explorer, the volta brings in the discovery of Chapman's Homer, the subject of which is further expanded through the use of imagery and comparisons which convey the poet's sense of awe at the discovery.

As is typical of sonnets in English, the meter is iambic pentameter, though not all of the lines scan perfectly (line 12 has an extra syllable, for example).

References to the poem

 * Edgar Allan Poe was inspired by Keats's writing about the discovery of Uranus when he wrote his early poem "Al Aaraaf" (1829).


 * Vladimir Nabokov refers to the poem in his novel Pale Fire:
 * ...and from the local Star


 * Frances Power Cobbe analysed the poem in her essay "The Peak in Darien : the riddle of death" in The Peak in Darien with some other inquiries touching concerns of the soul and the body : an octave of essays, Boston. 1882.


 * Myles na gCopaleen used Keats and Chapman as running characters in his Cruskeen Lawn columns in the Irish Times, usually living out shaggy dog stories leading up to increasingly elaborate puns.


 * Arthur Ransome uses two references from the poem in his children's books. The Swallows and Amazons series is based on the conceit of English schoolchildren treating their holidays as opportunities for exploration, just like stout Cortez upon a peak in Darien.


 * P.G. Wodehouse in his review of the first Flashman novel that came to his attention used a phrase from the poem: "Now I understand what that ‘when a new planet swims into his ken’ excitement is all about."


 * Freya Stark alludes to the poem in the title of "A Peak in Darien" (London, 1976).


 * Nicholas Tooley, one of the characters in Pamela Dean's fantasy novel Tam Lin, quotes the poem during a discussion of Homer.


 * New Zealand artist Michael Parekowhai has created a monumental artwork entitled “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” for the Venice Biennale 2011.


 * James Joyce in the third poem from his full-length poetry collection Chamber Music probably refers to Keats' poem, when in the second verse speaks of a "lonely watcher of the skies".


 * Progressive rock band Genesis borrowed a phrase for their track "Watcher of the Skies".


 * The opening credits of the 2008 series of BBC2 quiz programme University Challenge show the couplet beginning "then felt I like some watcher of the skies".


 * Episode 20 of the science-fiction TV series Jupiter Moon begins with a recitation of parts of the poem as Jupiter comes into view.


 * On the television show 30 Rock, in the 2011 episode "Operation Righteous Cowboy Lightning", Jack Donaghy says "I'm like Keats's stout Cortez, staring at the Pacific with a wild surmise and daring to imagine what new planets might swim into my ken".