Interestingly, John Keats, at twenty-one, could not read
Greek and was probably acquainted with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey only from having read
the translations of Alexander Pope, which apparently seemed prosy and stilted to him.
However, after he and a friend found a more vigorous translation by the Elizabethan poet
George Chapman, Keats was enthralled and he and his friend stayed up late to read aloud
this work to each other. Toward morning Keats wrote the sonnet "On First Looking into
Chapman's Homer" before going to bed.
Of note, too, is the
allusion to Cortez, since Balboa, not Cortez, discovered
the Pacific, as previously mentioned. Nevertheless, this error does not detract from
the value of Keats's poem. Another allusion is to Apollo,
the god to whom the Greeks always turned for wisdom. He was the god of prophecy and
healing; in Oedipus Rex, Apollo is the god whom the seer Teiresias consults at Delphi.
In the last line, Darien is alluded to; this is an ancient
name for the Isthmus of Panama. And, of course, Keats refers to
Chapman, whose translation inspired
him.
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