Stories can have profound effects on those who hear or read them, especially at the first encounter. Sometimes even a familiar plot line will inspire awe in the audience, if it is infused with new images, new perspectives, or simply brilliant authorship. This may be the most effective way to communicate with an audience on a deeper level, since the major points are understood and more attention can be paid to details; more powerful images can be created this way. In his poem “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” John Keats displays how the way a story is told brings new life to its plot, especially through his use of similes, images, allusions, and contrasting diction.
In the poem, the speaker begins by describing some of his own adventures to “realms of gold” and “goodly states and kingdoms” (line 1, 2). The words “goodly and “gold” set up a positive atmosphere for these travels; this is strengthened by the fact that “bards” or other poets hold these places “in fealty to Apollo” (4), the god of poetry among other things. The poem goes on to describe another place that the speaker has never been but that he has heard of through retellings of Homer’s poetry. Still, he feels he has never “breathe[d] its pure serene” (7), even though it has been described to him before, the same way the places he has been were described by other poets. This sets up a disappointed tone, as though the speaker wishes he could experience this place.
An important shift occurs between lines seven and eight; the disappointed tone turns awed, and the diction turns from calm, flowing words like “pure serene” to much more choppy diction: Chapman, a translator of Homer’s poetry, is able to “speak out loud and bold” (8). This shift in mood leads into a tone shift as well, which is characterized by the images Keats creates and allusions he uses to build similes. A comparison to “some watcher of the skies” (9) first seeing a new planet in his field of vision shows the same wonder of the speaker upon his “first look” at Chapman’s version of Homer. There is an element of anticipation in this image, as well. The planet “swims into his ken” (10); swimming is not a very fast method of transportation, so some tension is built up as it is moving. Finally, the planet arrives, and a sense of relief can be felt along with the admiration.
Even more profound is the allusion to the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortez, who was one of the first Europeans to ever see the Pacific Ocean. Keats describes Cortez as staring, looking with “a wild surmise” (13), and being silent at the sight of the ocean. The image here is one of almost perfect stillness and awe. The comparison of the speaker to Cortez in this situation demonstrates exactly how powerfully the speaker was affected by Chapman’s Homer, upon the first reading just as Cortez had his first sighting of the ocean.
The title of this poem seems dry at first, because it has no images itself. However, the rest of the poem continually shows how important the “first look” is: for the stargazer, for Cortez, and for the persona of the poem and his first look at Chapman’s Homer. The familiarity of the plot does not diminish the wonder the speaker feels at hearing this version of the story for the first time. Keats succesfully advocates the idea of retelling old stories in new ways through the way he builds tensions and then shifts the mood and tone in this poem.
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