John Keats

On first Looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been

bards in fealty

**Fealty** = feudal oath of loyalty. Keats frames poets as vassals serving Apollo, god of poetry. Literature as a medieval kingdom with Homer as ruler.

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:

deep-brow'd Homer

Homer was blind—never depicted with a prominent brow. Keats invents this detail to suggest intellectual depth and gravitas.

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Chapman speak

George Chapman's 1616 translation—rhymed, vigorous, Elizabethan. Keats read it in 1816 at his friend Clarke's house, stayed up all night, wrote this poem by morning.

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

stout Cortez

Wrong conquistador—Balboa discovered the Pacific in 1513. Keats likely confused them from William Robertson's *History of America*. Never corrected the error.

He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Metaphor System

Keats never traveled anywhere—he'd barely left London. The "realms of gold" are books. The entire octave uses travel metaphors for reading: "kingdoms" are literary traditions, "western islands" are individual works, Homer's "demesne" is the *Iliad* and *Odyssey*.

The word "serene" (line 7) is a noun, not an adjective—it means "clear, calm air" or "upper atmosphere." He's never breathed Homer's pure air until Chapman's translation. This connects to the astronomy simile that follows: discovering a new planet, breathing a new atmosphere.

The volta at line 9 shifts from travel metaphor to discovery simile. But notice: both comparisons are about seeing something that was always there. The planet existed before the astronomer spotted it. The Pacific existed before Cortez reached the peak. Homer existed before Keats read Chapman. The poem is about revelation, not creation.

What Keats Found in Chapman

In 1816, most English readers knew Homer through Alexander Pope's translation (1715-26)—elegant, balanced, neoclassical couplets. Chapman's 1616 version was rough, energetic, strange. Compare Pope's "The wrath of Peleus' son, the direful spring / Of all the Grecian woes, O Goddess, sing" with Chapman's "Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess."

Keats was 20 years old, training as a surgeon, writing poetry in secret. Chapman showed him Homer could be "loud and bold"—passionate, physical, uncouth. This permission mattered. Within two years, Keats would abandon surgery and write *Endymion*.

The Petrarchan sonnet form (ABBAABBA CDCDCD) mirrors the poem's structure: octave = the before, sestet = the after. The discovery happens exactly at the turn. The final image—men looking at each other in silence—captures the stunned moment when you realize what you're reading matters.