John Keat’s Petrarchan sonnet, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” expresses an unfiltered admiration for the powerfully vicarious effect that literature can have on the reader, as if the reading experience itself is an act of living. The volta is reflective of his sudden, unexpected epiphany upon reading the translation of the Homer’s poems by Chapman, an event so moving that he compared it to that of an astronomer making a discovery in night sky, or Cortez’s first sight of the Pacific ocean. Keats, in his poem, likens his experience to that of a Homeric voyage, and strikingly expresses how literature can convey as well as inspire.

The Octet:

• Keats opens the poem with the declaration “Much have I traveled in the realms of gold,” symbolic of his explorations as a reader in the worlds of literature, meaphorically compared to “realms of gold.” Keats likens the value of literature to that of gold, reflecting the high esteem which human society places on this art form.
• The line “Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold” elevates the status of a poet to that of a servant of god, Apollo being the patron of lyric and poetry. It is as if all poets, through their work, are channeling the divine itself.
• “Oft of one wide expanse had I been told”
• “That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne”, reflective of Homer’s hold on the Western canon. Homer’s intellect, and Homer’s power.

The Sestet: