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More Concerning Chapman's Homer and Keats
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 December 2021
Extract
In the first of her two volumes to the writing of which Amy Lowell gave her life that John Keats might live afresh, she threw out this suggestion: “If any one would have a grateful task, let him track Keats's indebtedness to Chapman's Homer. There is an ample field and practically unexplored.” In offering this suggestion Miss Lowell evidently was not aware that the expert eye of de Sélincourt had already noted the indebtedness which he had observed in the course of a perusal of the entire series of Chapman's Homeric translations. And I must plead guilty to the same ignorance at the time I began a systematic comparison of the two poets, embracing the whole of Keats's poetry and the entire translation of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymns. (I have not included the translations of the Georgics of Hesiod, the Book of Days, or any of Chapman's dramas.)
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927
References
1 John Keats, I, 178.
2 The Poems of John Keats, Second Ed. (1907), p. 577. In reference to Keats's use of abstract nouns, de Sélincourt says: “In reading through the whole of Chapman I have found no other examples, etc.” See p. 608 Appendix C for a list of points concerning Chapman's influence.
3 General references to the Iliad and the Odyssey are to the works of George Chapman, ed. Shepherd, (Chatto and Windus, London, 1924); to the Hymns, Homer's Batrachomyomachia, Hymns and Epigrams, ed. Hooper, (John Russell Smith), 1858.
4 Among my Books, Second Series, p. 308, ed. 1896.
5 The Poetical Works of John Keats, p. xxiii, 1884.
6 The Poetical Works of John Keats, Second Ed., 1885, passim.
7 The Poems of John Keats, pp. 423, 426,440, etc.
8 Concordance to the Poems of John Keats, p. vii.
9 John Keats, passim.
10 Leslie N. Broughton, Concordance to the Poems of John Keats, p. vii. For Keats's obligation to Chapman (among others) for Niobe, End. I: 338 ff., see de Sélincourt, op. cit., p. 423; for Dryope, End. I: 495, ibid., p. 426, the Hours or Seasons, End. II: 688, ibid., p. 434; for Circe, Hid., p. 440; with the rebel three, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, Hyp. I: 147, de Sélincourt (p. 500) compares Chapman's Iliad xv; 174, 175.
11 For brief references in Keats to particular figures in Homer see Paul Starick, Die Belesenheit von John Keats und Die Grundziige Seiner Lilerarischen Kritik, Berlin, 1910.
12 See Colvin, op. cit., p. 40.
13 Oddly enough, Miss Lowell speaks of the septenary as the measure of the Odyssey, which is of course pentameter. Chapman's Seven Books of Homer's Iliad, (I, II, VII–XI, published in 1598) were also'in pentameter.
14 Op. cit., pp. 97–114.
15 Op. cit., II, 235.
16 Op. cit., p. 577.
17 Ibid., p. xxix.
18 Ibid., p. 577.
19 See Henry Cecil Wyld, Studies in English Rhythms from Surrey to Pope, Index of Rhymes, pp. 135–140, and passim.
20 Ibid., pp. 74–5.
21 Probably these rimes were legitimate in his day. See Wyld, op. cit., p. 127.
22 Wyld, op. cit., p. 54.
23 William T. Arnold, The Poetical Works of John Keats, pp. xxix–xxx.
24 Examples at random from both Iliad and Odyssey are these: supply, instantly; I, empery; apply, destiny; I, diety; reply, empery; eye, instantly; fly, destiny; try, treasury; I, misery; humanity, descry; try, victory; fly, mortality; high, immediately; dry, misery; eye, fervently; eye, mortality; fully, empery; eye, empery; buy, liberty; personally, supply; empery, die; high, emperie; infamy, fly; lie, progeny; ply, legacy. Keats has empery and sigh (Lamia II, 35, 36), but scarcely any other case of exact agreement.
25 See Wyld, op. cit., pp. 69–70, for the rime as probably traditionally correct in Pope's day.
26 Op. cit., Glossary, pp. 585–600.
27 Op. cit., pp. 577–8. See also Colvin op. cit. p. 124.
28 For the parallel between Keats and Milton in use of phantasies see Havens, The Influence of Milton on English Poetry, p. 624.
29 For the parallel between Milton and Keats in use of gratulate see Havens, op. cit., p. 624.
30 In discussions of Keats's predilections for -y words (see the Concordance p. 230) too little emphasis has been laid on the agreement of his taste with Spenser's and Shakespeare's. Airy, common to these two, Keats uses twenty-one times; dewy appears a score of times in Spenser and Keats; flowery, gloomy, holy occur frequently in both; ruddy occurs sixteen times in Spenser, once in Shakespeare, seven times in Keats; sunny, nearly three times as often in Spenser as in Keats; starry, a dozen times in each.
For the influence of Spenser on Keats see especially Keats and Spenser, W. A. Read, Heidelberg, 1897. Two possible Spenserian borrowings I have not yet seen recorded are regality (F. Q. II, I, 57, 5), which may have suggested Then there was pictured the regality (End. III: 209); and ribbalds, (F. Q. II /1/103) as an adjective, which appears in Stanzas on Brown II, 5 as a plural noun.
31 Op. cit., p. 581.
32 See the Concordance pp. xiv–xv.
33 Hooper's edition of Chapman's Iliad gives lines. References to lines in the Odyssey are to Dent's edition. For the Homeric Hymns, see Note 3.
34 Chapman uses all-clouded, all-daring, all-dazzling, all-devouring, all-ill-expelling, all-hearing, all-languaged, all-preserving, all-seeing, all-sooted, all-recomforting, all-ripening, all-things-making-come-to-naught, all-ways-wandering.
fair-
Chapman: fair-chaired, fair-cheeked, fair-dame-breeding, fair-fated, fair-girdled, fair-haired, fair-helmed, fair-maned, fair-paved, fair-sealed, fair-wreathed, fair-wristed.
Spenser: fair-blushing, fair-burning, fair-fearful, fair-filed, fair-forged, fair-powdered, fair-shining, fair-seeming.
Shakespeare: fair-betrothed, fair-faced, fair-shining, fair-spoken.
Keats: fair-eyed, fair-grown, fair-haired, fair-spaced.
high-
Chapman: high-breasted, high-haired, high-horned, high-loved, high-palmed, high-ridged, high-roofed, high-spoke, high-topped, high-waved.
Spenser: high-adored, high-advanced, high-aspiring, high-blowing, high-conceited, high-flying, high-minded, high-mounted, high-reared, high-soaring.
Shakespeare: high-battled, high-blown, high-born, high-coloured, high-cross, high-day, high-engendered, highest-peering, high-gravel-blind, high-grown, high-judging, high-love, high-minded, high-pitched, high-placed, high-proof, high-proud, high-reaching, high-reared, high-repented, high-resolved, high-sighted, high-soaring, high-steward, high-stomached, high-swoln, high-viced, high-willed, high-wrought.
Keats: high-built, high-cedared, high-commissioned, high-favoring, high-fronted, high-piled, high-rife, high-sorrowful, high-thoughted.
well-
Chapman: well-adorned, well-armed, well-builded, well-given, well-greased, well-grown, well-inclined, well-napped, well-polished, well-rode, well-seen, well-served, well-skilled-in-navigation, well-walled, well-weighed, well-wreathed.
Spenser: well-advised, well-afraid, well-approved, well-attuned, well-beseeming, well-beseen, well-consorted, well-deemed, well-deserved, well-dight, well-doing, well-eyed, well-known, well-learned, well-measured, well-nigh, well-ordained, well-plighted, well-pointed, well-practiced, well-prepared, well-proportioned, well-proved, well-renowned, well-rigged, well-ruling, well-savoured, well-seen, well-shaped, well-skilled, well-spring-well-tempered, well-thewed, well-timbered, well-tried, well-tuned, well-wonted, well-worthy, well-woven.
Shakespeare: well-accomplished, well-acquainted, well-advised, well-a-near, well, apparelled, well-appointed, well-armed, well-balanced, well-behaved, well-beloved, well-be-seeming, well-born, well-breathed, well-chosen, well-contented, well-dealing well-defended, well-derived, well-deserving, well-desired, well-disposed, well-doing, well-educated, well-famed, well-favored, well-governed, well-graced, well-knit, well-known, well-labouring, well-learned, well-liking, well-lost, well-meaning, well-meant, well-minded, well-nigh, well-ordered, well-paid, well-painted, well-practic'd, well-proportioned, well-refined, well-reputed, well-respected, well-sailing, well-seeing, well-seeming, well-seen, well-skilled, well-spoken, well-took, well-tuned, well-warranted, well-weighing, well-willers, well-wished, well-worn.
Keats: well-a-day, well-away, well-grown, well-known, well-natured, well-nigh, well-pleased, well-wooing.
36 Chapman: gold-tipped, golden-bridle-using, gold-locked, golden-maned, golden-ribbon-bound-waved, golden-rod-adorning, golden-rod-sustaining, golden-seated, golden-throned, gold-yoked.
37 See Concordance p. xv.
38 For a brief study of general literary influence upon Keats's reading see Starick, Die Belesenheit von John Keats und Die Grundjiige Seiner Literarische Kritik.
39 Op. cit., p. 428.
40 See Colvin, op. cit., pp. 123, 164, 166; Amy Lowell, op. cit., I, 147, 319.
41 Op. cit. p. xlvi.
42 Op. cit., p. 427.
43 See Note 39 above.
44 Op. cit., I, 345.
45 The Poetical Works, etc. of John Keats, ed. 1883, I, 135.
46 Op. cit., p. 420.
47 Op. cit., pp. 225–6.
48 Colvin, op. cit., p. 39.
49 Op. cit., I, 438.
50 For her acknowledgment to Professor John Livingston Lowes in this connection, see I, 425.
51 See p. 993 above for de Sélincourt's note on wicker as probably not from Chapman.
52 Op. cit., p. 471.
53 Amy Lowell, op. cit., II, 242.
54 Ibid.
55 See Colvin, op. cit., opposite p. 418.