New Criticism of John Keats’ “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (1816)

After reading this poem several times, it is easy to see the purpose John Keats had when writing it. His enthusiasm for the works of Homer as translated by Chapman shine through in his diction, as a true understanding of the Ancient poet’s works become clear to him. A critic of this poem could say that tension arises in the work due to the understanding of Homer in a translated sense, rather than its original form in Greek. This concern is readily disregarded by modern readers, who have probably only encountered Homer themselves in a translated version.
From the title of the poem, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”, it is easy to infer that Keats’ main objective in this poem is to relate to the reader his first encounter with a translated version of Homer. This encounter can be said to be quite a good one, considering Keats’ flowery diction and a metaphor comparing his discovery to that of Cortez. This metaphor is not factual however, as Cortez did not “star[e] at the Pacific” but rather conquered the Aztec people (12). Disregarding the incongruity of this fact, the purpose of the metaphor is clear, in that Keats feels like he has stumbled upon something beautiful and new by reading Homer in the vernacular.
This newness and implied understanding of the text of Homer by Keats is made possible by the translation of Chapman, which allows Keats to feel “like some watcher of the skies/ When a new planet swims into his ken” (8-9). This simile and the use of the word “ken”, meaning vision, gives a complexity to the poem, as a reader must delve further than the surface to get at its meaning. Keats compares himself to a “watcher of the skies”, continuing to lead the poem into otherworldly spectrums, after his reference to Apollo: the god of music, poetry, and oracles, and “the realms of gold” (1, 4, 8). As this “watcher of the skies”, Keats finds Homer’s works to be like “a new planet swim[ming] into his ken”, and is quite taken aback by the view and feeling which accompany it (8-9).
This new understanding of the works takes Keats to a new level of consciousness, as he can “breathe [the] pure serene” of the lands of Homer and his characters. The tone of this work is one of astonishment. Keats projects a feeling of interested excitement at the discovery of Homer through the voice of Chapman. Because of the translation of Homer in this way, despite its lack of classicism, Keats can explore the text more thoroughly and enjoy it from a modern reader’s perspective.