George Chapman



George Chapman (c. 1559 – 12 May 1634) was an English poet, dramatist, and translator. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical poets. Chapman is best remembered for his translations of Homer's Iliad, Odyssey, and Batrachomyomachia.

Life and work
Chapman was born at Hitchin in Hertfordshire. There is conjecture that he studied at the University of Oxford but did not take a degree, though no reliable evidence affirms this. We know very little about Chapman's early life, but Mark Eccles uncovered records that reveal much about Chapman's difficulties and expectations. In 1585 Chapman was approached in a friendly fashion by John Wolfall, Sr., who offered to supply a bond of surety for a loan to furnish Chapman money "for his proper use in Attendance upon the then Right Honorable Sir Rafe Sadler Knight." Chapman's courtly ambitions led him into a trap. He apparently never received any money, but he would be plagued for many years by the papers he had signed. Wolfall had the poet arrested for debt in 1600, and when in 1608 Wolfall's son, having inherited his father's papers, sued yet again, Chapman's only resort was to petition the Court of Chancery for equity. As Sadler died in 1587 this gives Chapman little time to have trained under him, it seems more likely that he was in Sadler's household from 1577-83 as he dedicates all his Homerical translations to Sadler. He spent the early 1590s abroad, seeing military action in the Low Countries. His earliest published works were the obscure philosophical poems The Shadow of Night (1594) and Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595). The latter has been taken as a response to the erotic poems of the age such as Phillip Sydney's Astrophel and Stella and Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. Chapman's life was troubled by debt and his inability to find a patron whose fortunes did not decline. Chapman's erstwhile patrons Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex and the Prince of Wales, Prince Henry, each met their ends prematurely; the former was executed for treason by Elizabeth I (1601), and the latter died of typhoid fever at the age of eighteen (1612). Chapman's resultant poverty did not diminish his ability or his standing among his fellow Elizabethan poets and dramatists.

Chapman died in London, having lived his latter years in poverty and debt.

Comedies
By the end of the 1590s, Chapman had become a successful playwright, working for Philip Henslowe and later for the Children of the Chapel. Among his comedies are The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (1596; printed 1598), An Humorous Day's Mirth (1597; printed 1599), All Fools (printed 1605), Monsieur D'Olive (1605; printed 1606), The Gentleman Usher (printed 1606) May Day (printed 1611), and The Widow's Tears (printed 1612). His plays show a willingness to experiment with dramatic form: An Humorous Day's Mirth was one of the first plays to be written in the style of 'humours comedy' which Ben Jonson later used in Every Man in his Humour and Every Man Out of his Humour. With The Widow's Tears he was also one of the first writers to meld comedy with more serious themes, creating the tragicomedy later made famous by Beaumont and Fletcher.

He also wrote one noteworthy play in collaboration. Eastward Ho (1605), written with Jonson and John Marston, contained satirical references to the Scots which landed Chapman and Jonson in jail. Various of their letters to the king and other nobleman survive in a manuscript in the Folger Library known as the Dobell MS, and published by A.R. Braunmuller as A Seventeenth Century Letterbook. In the letters, both men renounced the offending line, implying that Marston was responsible for the injurious remark. Jonson's 'Conversations With Drummond' refers to the imprisonment, and suggests there was a possibility that both authors would have their 'ears and noses slit' as a punishment, but this may have been Jonson elaborating on the story in retrospect.

Chapman's friendship with Jonson, however, broke down, perhaps as a result of Jonson's public feud with Inigo Jones, and some satiric, scathing lines, written sometime after the burning of Jonson's desk and papers, provide evidence of the rift. The poem lampooning Jonson's aggressive behaviour and self-believed superiority remained unpublished during Chapman's lifetime, and exists only in documents collected after his death.

Tragedies
His greatest tragedies took their subject matter from recent French history, the French ambassador taking offence on at least one occasion. These include Bussy D'Ambois (1607), The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron (1608), The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois (1613) and The Tragedy of Chabot, Admiral of France (published 1639). The two Byron plays were banned from the stage&mdash;though when the Court left London the plays were performed in their original and unexpurgated forms by the Children of the Chapel. The French ambassador probably took offence to a scene which portrays Henry IV's wife and mistress arguing and physically fighting. On publication, the offending material was excised, and Chapman refers to the play in his dedication to Sir Thomas Walsingham as 'poore dismembered Poems'. His only work of classical tragedy, Caesar and Pompey (ca. 1613?) is generally regarded as his most modest achievement in the genre.

Other plays
Chapman wrote one of the most successful masques of the Jacobean era, The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn, performed on 15 February 1613.

Chapman's authorship has been argued in connection with a number of anonymous plays of his era. F. G. Fleay proposed that his first play was The Disguises. He has been put forward as the author, in whole or in part, of Sir Giles Goosecap, Two Wise Men And All The Rest Fools, The Fountain Of New Fashions, and The Second Maiden's Tragedy.Of these, only 'Sir Gyles Goosecap' is generally accepted by scholars to have been written by Chapman (The Plays of George Chapman: The Tragedies, with Sir Giles Goosecap, edited by Allan Holaday, University of Illinois Press, 1987).

In 1654, bookseller Richard Marriot published the play Revenge for Honour as the work of Chapman. Scholars have rejected the attribution; the play may have been written by Henry Glapthorne. Alphonsus Emperor of Germany (also printed 1654) is generally considered another false Chapman attribution.

The lost plays The Fatal Love and A Yorkshire Gentlewoman And Her Son were assigned to Chapman in Stationers' Register entries in 1660. Both of these plays were among the ones destroyed in the famous kitchen burnings by John Warburton's cook. The lost play Christianetta (registered 1640) may have been a collaboration between Chapman and Richard Brome, or a revision by Brome of a Chapman work.

Poet and translator
Other poems by Chapman include: De Guiana, Carmen Epicum (1596), on the exploits of Sir Walter Raleigh; a continuation of Christopher Marlowe's unfinished Hero and Leander (1598); and Euthymiae Raptus; or the Tears of Peace (1609). Some have considered Chapman to be the "rival poet" of Shakespeare's Sonnets.

From 1598 he published his translation of the Iliad in installments. (Shakespeare apparently was able to learn enough about the content of the Iliad, whether directly from Chapman's translation, or from an acquaintance with what Chapman was working on acquired otherwise, to enable him to put forth "Troilus and Cressida" in 1601-2; that play is remarkable for interweaving the Iliadic story of the deaths of Patroclus and Hector with the quite un-Iliadic story of love betrayed as told first in English by Geoffrey Chaucer in his masterpiece "Troilus and Criseyde.") In 1616 the complete Iliad and Odyssey appeared in The Whole Works of Homer, the first complete English translation, which until Pope's was the most popular in the English language and was the way most English speakers encountered these poems. The endeavour was to have been profitable: his patron, Prince Henry, had promised him £300 on its completion plus a pension. However, Henry died in 1612 and his household neglected the commitment, leaving Chapman without either a patron or an income. In an extant letter, Chapman petitions for the money owed him; his petition was ineffective. Chapman's translation of the Odyssey is written in iambic pentameter, whereas his Iliad is written in iambic heptameter. (The Greek original is in dactylic hexameter.) Chapman often extends and elaborates on Homer's original contents to add descriptive detail or moral and philosophical interpretation and emphasis. Chapman's translation of Homer was much admired by John Keats, notably in his famous poem On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, and also drew attention from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and T.S. Eliot.

Chapman also translated the Homeric Hymns, the Georgics of Virgil, The Works of Hesiod (1618, dedicated to Francis Bacon), the Hero and Leander of Musaeus (1618), and the Fifth Satire of Juvenal (1624).

Chapman's poetry, though not widely influential on the subsequent development of English poetry, did have a noteworthy effect on the work of T. S. Eliot.

Recognition
In Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem, The Revolt of Islam, Shelley quotes a verse of Chapman's as homage within his dedication "to Mary__ __" (presumably his wife Mary Shelley):

"There is no danger to a man, that knows What life and death is: there's not any law Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful That he should stoop to any other law."

Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde, quoted the same verse in his part fiction, part literary criticism, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.".

Chapman's poem "Bridal Song" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.

He is best known by "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," which poet John Keats wrote for his friend Charles Cowden Clarke in October 1816. The poem, which begins "Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold," is much quoted (for example, by P.G. Wodehouse in his review of the first Flashman novel that came to his attention: "Now I understand what that ‘when a new planet swims into his ken’ excitement is all about.") Arthur Ransome uses two references from the poem in his children's books, the Swallows and Amazons series.

Quotes
From All Fooles, II.1.170-178, by George Chapman:


 * I could have written as good prose and verse
 * As the most beggarly poet of 'em all,
 * Either Accrostique, Exordion,
 * Epithalamions, Satyres, Epigrams,
 * Sonnets in Doozens, or your Quatorzanies,
 * In any rhyme, Masculine, Feminine,
 * Or Sdrucciola, or cooplets, Blancke Verse:
 * Y'are but bench-whistlers now a dayes to them
 * That were in our times....

Publications

 * Ekìa vuktòs The Shadow of Night: Containing Two Poeticall Hymnes. London: Printed by R. F. for William Ponsonby, 1594.
 * Ouids Banquet of Sence. London: Printed by I.R. for Richard Smith, 1595.
 * Hero and Leander (parts 1-2 by Christopher Marlowe, parts 3-6 by Chapman). London: Printed by Felix Kingston for Paule Linley, 1598.
 * The Blinde Begger of Alexandria. London: Printed by J. Roberts for William Jones, 1598).
 * A Pleasant Comedy Entituled: An Humerous dayes Myrth. London: Printed by G.C. for Valentine Syms, 1599.
 * Al Fooles. London: Printed by G. Eld for Thomas Thorpe, 1605.
 * Eastward Hoe (by Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston). London: Printed by G. Eld for William Aspley, 1605.
 * Sir Gyles Goosecappe Knight. London: Printed by John Windet for Edward Blunt, 1606.
 * The Gentleman Usher. London: Printed by Valentine Simmes for Thomas Thorppe, 1606.
 * Monsievr D'Olive. London: Printed by Thomas Creede for William Holmes, 1606.
 * Bussy D'Ambois. London: Printed by Eliot's Court Press for William Aspley, 1607.
 * The Conspiracie, and Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron. London: Printed by George Eld for Thomas Thorppe, sold by L. Lisle, 1608.
 * Evthymiæ Raptvs; or the Teares of Peace. London: Printed by H. Lownes for Richard Bonian & H. Walley, 1609.
 * May-day.(London: Printed by William Stansby for John Browne, 1611.
 * An Epicede or Funerall Song: On the most disastrous Death, of the Highborne Prince of Men, Henry Prince of Wales, & c. With The Funeralls, and Representation of the Herse. London: Printed by T.S. for John Budge, 1612.
 * The Widdowes Teares. London: Printed by William Stansby for John Browne, 1612.
 * The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois. London: Printed by T. Snodham, sold by John Helme, 1613.
 * The Memorable Maske of the Honorable Houses or Inns of Court; the Middle Temple, and Lyncolns Inne. London: Printed by George Eld for George Norton, 1613.
 * Evgenia: Or Trve Nobilities Trance; For the Most Memorable Death, of the Thrice Noble and Religious; William Lord Rvssel. London, 1614.
 * Andromeda Liberata. Or The Nvptials of Persevs and Andromeda. London: Printed by Eliot's Court Press for Laurence L'Isle, 1614.
 * A Free and Offenceles Iustification, of a Lately Pvblisht and Most Maliciously Misinterpreted Poeme: Entitvled Andromeda Liberata. London: Printed by Eliot's Court Press for Laurence L'Isle, 1614.
 * Pro Vere, Avtvmni Lachrymae. Inscribed to the Immortal Memorie of the most Pious and Incomparable Souldier, Sir Horatio Vere, Knight. London: Printed by B. Alsop for Th. Walkley, 1622.
 * A Iustification of a Strange Action of Nero. London: Printed by Thomas Harper, 1629.
 * Caesar and Pompey. London: Printed by Thomas Harper, sold by G. Emondson & T. Alchorne, 1631.
 * The Tragedy of Chabot Admirall of France (by Chapman and James Shirley). London: Printed by Thomas Cotes for Andrew Crooke & William Cooke, 1639.

Modern collections and editions
The Plays of George Chapman
 * The Comedies and Tragedies of George Chapman (3 volumes, edited by Richard Shepherd). London: John Pearson, 1873.
 * The Works of George Chapman (3 volumes, edited by Richard Shepherd and Algernon Charles Swinburne). London: Chatto & Windus, 1874-1875.
 * The Plays and Poems of George Chapman (2 volumes, edited by Thomas Marc Parrott). London: Routledge; New York: Dutton, 1910, 1914.
 * The Poems of George Chapman (edited by Phyllis Brooks Bartlett). New York: Modern Language Association of America; London: Oxford University Press, 1941.
 * Chapman's Homer: The Iliad, The Odyssey, and the Lesser Homerica (2 volumes, edited by Allardyce Nicoll). New York: Pantheon, 1956.
 * "The Divine Poem of Musæus" (translated by Chapman) and "Hero and Leander" (completed by Chapman) in Elizabethan Minor Epics (edited by Elizabeth Story Donno). New York: Columbia University Press, 1963, pp. 70-126.
 * volume 1 (edited by Allan Holaday and Michael Kiernan). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1970
 * volume 2 (edited by Allan Holaday, G. Blakemore Evans, and Thomas Berger), Woodbridge, UK & Wolfeboro, NH: D. S. Brewer, 1987.
 * George Chapman's Minor Translations (edited by Richard Corballis). Salzburg, Austria: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1984.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.