On First Looking into Chapman's Homer Essay Questions

What role does vision play in "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer?"

First, the poem's title alerts us to the significance of vision: the speaker is looking into Chapman's Homer, not simply reading it or hearing its verse spoken aloud. Then, the speaker repeatedly emphasizes things seen, in addition to the action of looking closely: the metaphors he uses to describe the change Chapman's Homer provoked within him feature an astronomer discovering a new star and the Spanish explorer Cortez staring down the Pacific, waiting for new land to creep into the horizon. Finally, vision is an essential feature of the imagination, which is where the speaker's epic journey truly takes place. The change that occurs within the speaker ultimately results from a change in perspective: Chapman's Homer allows him to gaze into the epic universe with new eyes.

Why is it significant that "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" is a sonnet, and why is this genre especially suited to the poem's subject matter?

"On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer" is a Petrarchan sonnet, which means the poem's 14 lines can be divided into an octave, or the first eight lines, and a sestet, or the last six. Although rhyme, meter, and length are crucial features of sonnets, the volta, or turn of thought, that occurs in line nine, at the beginning of the sestet, is the genre's most significant element. If there is no volta—or, if there is no change of mind, heart, or time—a 14 line poem, even if every formal element may be identified, isn't a sonnet. Because "On Looking Into Chapman's Homer" is about a change that occurs within the speaker after reading Chapman's Homer, and the change that occurs in the landscape of Homer's universe through Chapman's voice, it perfectly embodies the form of the sonnet.