On First Looking into Chapman's Homer Notes

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

John Keats 

1816

KEY THEMES

• Literature and Writing
• Ambition
• Awe and Amazement
• Exploration
• Immortality

CONTEXT

• Written in one night after John Keats and Charles Cowden Clarke read George Chapman's translations of the works of Homer
• Chapman's Homer was not regarded highly, with scholars preferring Pope and Dryden's version.
• Keats, born into a lower-middle-class family, may have felt isolated from the literary world because of his social status.
• Keats' poems were not highly regarded during his lifetime, adding to his sense of isolation

• Homer wrote "The Odyssey" and "The Illiad"
• "The Odyssey" tells the story of Odysseus' voyage home to his wife and Ithaca. It was a long and laborious journey that mirrors the journey Keats believed he was going to take. 
• The imagery of travel and geographical islands in "In First Looking..." could represent Keats…