Monday, April 23, 2007

"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," by John Keats

Much have I traveled 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-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet never did I breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then I felt like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez* when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

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* I always loved the footnote in my Norton Anthology of English Literature on this line -- that it was Balboa, not Cortez, who first saw the Pacific "matters to history but not to poetry."

More Keats:
To Autumn
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
The Eve of St. Agnes

6 comments:

  1. Another selection that reminds me of Tam Lin. (I enjoyed your Lady's Not for Burning post.)

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  2. Do you read "On First Looking..." differently, now that you've read Homer yourself?

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  3. Keats was my favorite poet in college. I think I wrote three papers on The Eve of St. Agnes. It has snacks and cute boys sneaking into girls' bedrooms. What's not to love?

    I always found it disconcerting that he died so young. It nags at me that Keats wrote all his best stuff before he was 23. Every year I think about how I'm older than that and ask, "What have I done lately?"

    Now I take comfort with stories of late bloomers like Raymond Chandler and Grandma Moses.

    Marilyn

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  4. Nope -- it captures my feelings on reading Homer for the first time, but it doesn't change my experience of this poem in particular.

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  5. I'm pretty sure I first came across the last few lines of this poem quoted in Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome -- no idea where Darien actually is, mind you, but it's still one of my favourite place names. Arthur Ransome slipped lots of "literature" into his books like that; so did E. Nesbit, come to think of it.

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  6. After reading an analysis of this poem from a site my friend gave me, my whole outlook on this poem changed significantly.. There are so many themes conveyed here and yet I never knew they were existant before... Strange, much like described in the poem itself.

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