Essay on poetry

On First Looking Into Chapmans Homer by John Keats

Much have I travelld 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-browd Homer ruled as his demesne

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold;

Then felt like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He stard at the Pacific and all his men

Lookd at each other with a wild surmise

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

On First Looking Into Chapmans Homer was written by John Keats at

a very young age, it was first published in 1816 in the London newspaper The
Examiner and a year later in Keats first collection named Poems. The poem is

an Italian sonnet composed by fourteen lines, it means that it has an octave

and a sestet. The rhyme scheme is ABBAABBA CDCDCD, in terms of
rhythm it is written in iambic pentameter. In some lines of the poem, the
author used abbreviated words; as in the 5 line where the author wrote /oft/
instead of often with the aim of complete the feet in the lines.
In relation with the structure of the poem it is narrated by a person who
has some knowledge through the experiences that he has acquired thanks to
the trips around the world and the reading. The first quatrain of the poem
consists in a narration in which the speaker talks about the place where he has
been

/Round many western islands have I been/ Which bards in fealty to

Apollo hold/, in this part the speaker talks about familiarity that he has with
the world and also about the culture of other places, it is reflected when
Apollo is mentioned.
Nevertheless, in the second quatrain the speaker introduced Homer and
some of the thoughts that he has about him and some of his writings. In the
other hand, she/he mentioned to Champman a contemporary of Shakespeare,
famous for his translation of Homers The Iliad and The Odyssey /That deepbrowd Homer ruled as his demesne/ Yet did I never breathe its pure
serene/Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold;/ this part key, because
from it, we could infer that the speaker has read The Iliad and The Odyssey

before, but she/he had not felt a connection with those text until he read the
traduction of Chapman.
Besides, in the sestet the speaker described his feelings after read the
translation works Chapman /Then felt like some watcher of the skies/ When a
new planet swims into his ken;/ Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes/, in
this part of the poem the speaker compares the Chapman translation with the
view from an explorer, this is the reason why he named Cortez in the poem, to
make an allusion of one expirer who saw the Pacific Ocean. The speaker
mentioned also the word ken that here represents a new knowledge acquired
by means of reading and exploring.
From the lecture of the poem and the analysis of the principal
characteristics, it is notable that the author uses several characteristics from
the epic. The setting of an epic poem encompasses all the world, the poem
begins /Much have I travelld in the realms of gold,/ And many goodly states
and kingdoms seen;/ Round many western islands have I been/, the
background of the poem includes many places such as realms, kingdoms, even
a new planet in line 10 and the Pacific Ocean in line 12. Also, the epic
involves Greek deities, such as Apollo in line 4 /Which bards in fealty to
Apollo hold./ the author mention this deity for the importance that it has in
The Iliad.

As conclusion, the author wanted express with the poem, his own experience
reading the Homers works through Chapmans view. But the most important
aspect of the poem is the metaphors that the author used to show the pure
beauty of poetry and literature, that always give us the possibility to explore
new places through the arts and the literature.