English Literature / Unit 13 ENL 1216 short lesson, about 20 seconds
"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"
Captions available
The idea
Keats's Petrarchan sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," of eighteen sixteen, records his wonder at reading Chapman's Elizabethan translation of Homer. The octave describes his earlier reading; the sestet compares discovery to an astronomer finding a planet or an explorer sighting the Pacific.
In practice
Octave, then the shock of discovery.
Where people slip
Keats names Cortez where Balboa saw the Pacific.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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