George Chapman

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Times; color: #ffffff} For George Chapman (1559-1634) his translation of Homer was ‘the work that I was born to do’. The publication of his Iliad and Odyssey together in 1616 was a landmark in English literature, but until now there has been no edition which modernises his spelling and punctuation and also provides detailed help in grasping his often obscure language, and in understanding how and why he translated Homer in the particular way he did. This edition of the Odyssey, a companion to Robert Miola’s edition of the Iliad, aims to bring Chapman’s rendering alive for the modern reader. Its literary, philosophical, and religious context is explained in an Introduction and in footnotes, and side- and end-glosses clarify Chapman’s English. His Odyssey is not only a stylistic masterpiece of seventeenth-century English: it constitutes a profound and moving interpretation – still relevant after four hundred years – of Homer’s story of the suffering and grace implicit in the human condition. Through its teeming diversity of events, settings, and characters Homer and his first English translator explore the question of what it means to be human in a complex and threatening world.

George Chapman (1559–1634) continues to cut a significant figure as a dramatist and translator of Homer, but his reputation as a poet has fared poorly. The common critical view has made him notorious as a writer of “difficult” poetry, to the point of being considered guilty of deliberate and wanton obscurity. Gerald Snare argues that the fact of the matter is quite the reverse: his supposed difficulty as well as the moral and philosophical imperatives that are assumed to dominate his work are in fact the construction of critics. The Mystification of George Chapman is an argument against the accepted view of Chapman's art. Snare examines Hero and Leander to determine the nature of its poetics and its relation to Mousaios and Marlowe; he reports on the imitative strategies of Ovid's Banquet of Sense and declares that it deserves a reputation quite different from that of the most difficult poem in the English language; and he refers to Chapman's own criticism found in the prefaces and notes often attached to his poems. The author finds Chapman's poems were responses to the critical pressures inherent in adapting Greek, Latin, and contemporaneous English authors to his art, and he disputes the modern critical tendency to assume that doctrine, and not poetic practice, was the primary source of poetic energy in the Renaissance.

Famously praised by John Keats for speaking ‘loud and bold’, Chapman’s Homer brought Greek poetry and civilization to life for centuries of readers. Many have praised its rough energy and creativity, the crashing power of the verses, its grim depiction of life and death in war. The companion to Gordon Kendal’s edition of Chapman’s Odyssey, this edition of his Iliad features a newly edited version of the 1611 printing (including all the translator’s combative notes and commentary) in modern spelling and punctuation. The introduction, “Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” explores the complicated history of revision behind the text, the intermediate Latin sources, and, most important, Chapman’s early modern reception of the Iliad, that is, the later political, cultural, social, literary, moral, and theological ideas that shape his reading of the ancient Greek text. The edition provides also full textual collations, lexical and explanatory notes, a glossary, bibliography, an appendix on Chapman’s contributions to the English language, and index. Like his great contemporary and rival, William Shakespeare, Chapman was a dramatist and one of the great wordsmiths of the Renaissance, a creator of the language that we speak and write today as Modern English. Chapman’s Iliad deploys the resources of this developing English language for stunning poetic effects; this raw and powerful version of Homer’s inspired song stands also as a masterpiece of English literature.

The English poet and dramatist, George Chapman, whose translation of Homer long remained the standard English version, was a rival of Shakespeare and a revered classical scholar. The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature's finest poets, with superior formatting. For the first time in digital publishing, this volume presents Chapman’s complete poetry, with beautiful illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Chapman's life and works * Concise introduction to Chapman’s life and poetry * Excellent formatting of the poems * Special alphabetical contents tables for the poetry * The poetry text is based on the Oxford University Press 1941 edition of Chapman * Easily locate the poems you want to read * The complete Homeric translations * Includes a selection of Chapman's famous plays - spend hours exploring the poet's celebrated works * Features a bonus biographical and critical work by Algernon Charles Swinburne * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to see our wide range of poet titles CONTENTS: The Life and Poetry of George Chapman BRIEF INTRODUCTION: GEORGE CHAPMAN COMPLETE POEMS OF GEORGE CHAPMAN LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER The Homeric Translations THE ILIADS THE ODYSSEYS THE BATTLE OF FROGS AND MICE THE HOMERIC HYMNS The Comedies AN HUMOROUS DAY’S MIRTH EASTWARD HO MAY DAY The Tragedies THE TRAGEDY OF BUSSY D’AMBOIS THE REVENGE OF BUSSY D’AMBOIS ROLLO DUKE OF NORMANDY The Biography GEORGE CHAPMAN by Algernon Charles Swinburne Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of poetry titles or buy the entire Delphi Poets Series as a Super Set