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George Chapman ( – 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman is seen as an anticipator of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. He is best remembered for his translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and the Homeric Batrachomyomachia.
Shakespeare was a contemporary of Chapman, and there is evidence that he knew some of Chapman's work. William Minto proposed Chapman as a candidate for being the "Rival Poet" mentioned in Shakespeare's sonnets.
As a young man, Chapman spent time in the household of Sir Ralph Sadler. Sadler, a wealthy man who specialised in Anglo-Scottish diplomacy, was based in London and his country estate at Standon, Hertfordshire. Chapman encountered two problems that were to dog him during his career, debt and the failure to find a patron who could give him long-term support. In 1585 Chapman was approached by one John Wolfall Sr. of Silver Street, London. Wolfall offered to supply a bond of surety for a loan to furnish Chapman money "for his proper use in Attendance upon the then Right Honorable Sir Rafe Sadler Knight". Sadler died in 1587. His son Thomas was also politically prominent (James I stayed at Standon on his journey toward London to claim the English throne), but while Chapman maintained contact with the Sadler family, he spent the early 1590s abroad. He saw military action in the Low Countries, fighting under renowned English general Sir Francis Vere.
Chapman returned to England at some point in the 1590s. His comedy The Blind Beggar of Alexandria premiered in 1596. He would be plagued for many years by the papers he had signed in 1585. Wolfall, who turned out to have a history of predatory lending,Nicholl, Charles (2002). The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (2nd ed.). ISBN 0-09-943747-3. had the poet arrested for debt in 1600. When in 1608 Wolfall's son sued yet again (as administrator of his father´s estate), Chapman's only resort was to petition the Court of Chancery for equity.For the text of Chapman's petition for relief, see A. R. Braunmuller, A Seventeenth Century Letter-Book: A Facsimile Edition of Folger MS. V. A. 321 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1983), 395.
Wolfall's son claimed that Chapman´s career prospects would have been better if he had not turned to poetry. Leaving aside counterfactual speculation, he was certainly unlucky with patrons, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and the Prince of Wales, Prince Henry, both met their ends prematurely. The former was executed for treason by Elizabeth I in 1601, and the latter died of typhoid fever at the age of eighteen in 1612. Chapman's resultant poverty did not diminish his ability or his standing among his fellow poets and dramatists.
At one point Chapman appears to have returned to Hertfordshire to evade his creditors, but he died in London. He was buried at St Giles in the Fields. A monument to him designed by Inigo Jones marked his tomb, and stands today inside the church.Thornbury, Walter. "St Giles-in-the-Fields." Old and New London: Volume 3. London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1878. 197-218. British History Online Retrieved 28 April 2023. Jones was a friend of Chapman and had collaborated with him on projects such as The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn.
He also wrote one noteworthy play in collaboration. Eastward Hoe (1605), written with Jonson and John Marston, contained satirical references to the Scottish courtiers who formed the retinue of the new king James I; this landed Chapman and Jonson in jail at the suit of Sir James Murray of Cockpool, the king's "rascally" Groom of the Stool. (2026). 9780198129769, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198129769 Various of their letters to the king and noblemen survive in a manuscript in the Folger Library known as the Dobell MS, and published by AR Braunmuller as A Seventeenth Century Letterbook. In the letters, both men renounced the offending line, implying that Marston was responsible for the injurious remark. Jonson's "Conversations With Drummond" refers to the imprisonment, and suggests there was a possibility that both authors would have their "ears and noses slit" as a punishment, but this may have been Jonson elaborating on the story in retrospect.
Chapman's friendship with Jonson broke down, perhaps as a result of Jonson's public feud with Inigo Jones. Some satiric, scathing lines, written sometime after the burning of Jonson's desk and papers, provide evidence of the rift. The poem lampooning Jonson's aggressive behaviour and self-believed superiority remained unpublished during Chapman's lifetime; it was found in documents collected after his death.
The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Byron offended the French ambassador, probably because it included a scene which portrayed Henry IV's wife and mistress arguing and physically fighting, and Robert Cecil was persuaded to issue a warrant for Chapman's arrest. However, Ludovic Stuart, 2nd Duke of Lennox, appears to have intervened to prevent its execution.Bergerson, David M. (2022), The Duke of Lennox, 1574 - 1624: A Jacobean Courtier, Edinburgh University Press, pp 173 - 174, , On publication, the offending material was excised, and Chapman refers to the play in his dedication to Sir Thomas Walsingham as "poore dismembered Poems".
His only work of classical tragedy, Caesar and Pompey (written 1604, published 1631), although "politically astute", can be regarded as his most modest achievement in the genre. (2026). 9780192806871, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192806871
Chapman wrote one of the most successful of the Jacobean era, The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn, performed on 15 February 1613. According to Kenneth Muir, The Masque of the Twelve Months, performed on Twelfth Night 1619 and first printed by John Payne Collier in 1848 with no author's name attached, is also ascribed to Chapman.Martin Butler: George Chapman's Masque of the Twelve Months (1619). In: English Literary Renaissance 37 (Nov. 2007); pp. 360–400.
Chapman's authorship has been argued in connection with a number of other anonymous plays of his era.Terence P. Logan and Denzell S. Smith, eds., The New Intellectuals: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama, Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1977; pp. 155–60. F. G. Fleay proposed that his first play was The Disguises. He has been put forward as the author, in whole or in part, of Sir Giles Goosecap, Two Wise Men And All The Rest Fools, The Fountain of New Fashions, and The Second Maiden's Tragedy. Of these, only 'Sir Gyles Goosecap' is generally accepted by scholars to have been written by Chapman ( The Plays of George Chapman: The Tragedies, with Sir Giles Goosecap, edited by Allan Holaday, University of Illinois Press, 1987).
In 1654, bookseller Richard Marriot published the play Revenge for Honour as the work of Chapman. Scholars have rejected the attribution; the play may have been written by Henry Glapthorne. Alphonsus Emperor of Germany (also printed 1654) is generally considered another false Chapman attribution.Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. The Popular School: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1975; pp. 151–7.
The lost plays The Fatal Love and A Yorkshire Gentlewoman And Her Son were assigned to Chapman in Stationers' Register entries in 1660. Both of these plays were among the ones destroyed in the famous kitchen burnings by John Warburton's cook. The lost play Christianetta (registered 1640) may have been a collaboration between Chapman and Richard Brome, or a revision by Brome of a Chapman work.
Some have considered Chapman to be the "Rival Poet" of Shakespeare's sonnets (in sonnets 78–86), although conjecture places him as one in a large field of possibilities. (2026). 9780748653881, Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748653881
From 1598 he published his translation of the Iliad in instalments. In 1616 the complete Iliad and Odyssey appeared in The Whole Works of Homer, the first complete English translation, which until Alexander Pope's (completed 1726) was the most popular in the English language and was the way most English speakers encountered these poems. The endeavour was to have been profitable: his patron, Prince Henry, had promised him £300 on its completion plus a pension. However, Henry died in 1612 and his household neglected the commitment, leaving Chapman without either a patron or an income. In an extant letter, Chapman petitions for the money owed him; his petition was ineffective. Chapman's translation of the Odyssey is written in iambic pentameter, whereas his Iliad is written in iambic heptameter. (The Greek original is in dactylic hexameter.) Chapman often extends and elaborates on Homer's original contents to add descriptive detail or moral and philosophical interpretation and emphasis.
Chapman also translated the Homeric Hymns, the Georgics of Virgil, The Works of Hesiod (1618, dedicated to Francis Bacon), the Hero and Leander of Musaeus (1618) and the Fifth Satire of Juvenal (1624).
Chapman's translation of Homer was admired by Pope for "a daring fiery spirit that animates his translation, which is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have writ", though he also disapproved of Chapman's roughness and inaccuracy.Alexander Pope, "Preface" to 'The Iliad of Homer' John Keats expressed a fervent admiration of Chapman's Homeric authenticity in his famous poem "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer". Chapman also drew attention from Samuel Taylor Coleridge and T. S. Eliot.Matthews, Steven. "T. S. Eliot's Chapman: 'Metaphysical' Poetry and Beyond." Journal of Modern Literature Vol. 29 No. 4 (Summer 2006), pp. 22–43.
There is no danger to a man, that knows What life and death is: there's not any law Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful That he should stoop to any other law.Hutchinson, Thomas (undated). The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Including Materials Never Before Printed in any Edition of the Poems & Edited with Textural Notes. E. W. Cole: Commonwealth of Australia; Book Arcade, Melbourne. p. 38. (NB: Hardcover, clothbound, embossed.) Published prior to issuing of ISBN.
The Irish playwright Oscar Wilde quoted the same verse in his part fiction, part literary criticism, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.".Wilde, Oscar (2003). "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.". Hesperus Press Limited 4 Rickett Street, London SW6 1RU. p. 46. First published 1921.
The English poet John Keats wrote "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" for his friend Charles Cowden Clarke in October 1816. The poem begins "Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold" and is much quoted. For example, P. G. Wodehouse in his review of the first novel of The Flashman Papers series that came to his attention: "Now I understand what that 'when a new planet swims into his ken' excitement is all about."Quoted on current UK imprint of Flashman novels as cover blurb. Arthur Ransome uses two references from it in his children's books, the Swallows and Amazons series. (2026). 9781843836728, Boydell. ISBN 9781843836728
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