(1559?-1634)
[Illustration: GEORGE CHAPMAN]
George Chapman, the translator of Homer, is of all the Elizabethan
dramatists the most undramatic. He is akin to Marlowe in being more of
an epic poet than a playwright; but unlike his young compeer "of the
mighty line," who in his successive plays learnt how to subdue an
essentially epic genius to the demands of the stage, Chapman never got
near the true secret of dramatic composition. Yet he witnessed the
growth of the glorious Elizabethan drama, from its feeble beginning in
'Gorbodue' and 'Gammer Gurton's Needle' through its very flowering in
the immortal masterpieces. He was born about 1559, five years before
Marlowe, the "morning star" of the English drama, and he died in 1634,
surviving Shakespeare, in whom it reached its maturity, and Beaumont,
Middleton, and Fletcher, whose works foreshadow decay. From his native
town Hitchin he passed on to Oxford, where he distinguished himself as
a classical scholar. Then for sixteen years nothing definite is known
about him. His life has been called one of the great blanks of English
literature. He is sometimes sent traveling on the Continent, as a
convenient means of accounting for this gap, and also to explain the
intimate acquaintance with German manners and customs and the language
displayed in his tragedy 'Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany,' which argues
at least for a trip to that country. In 1594 he published the two hymns
in the 'Shadow of Night'; and soon after he must have begun writing
for the stage, for his first extant comedy, 'The Blind Beggar of
Alexandria,' was acted in 1596, and two years later he appears in
Francis Meres's famous enumeration of the poets and wits of the time.
Hereafter his life is to be dated by his publications.
He occupies a position unique among the Elizabethans, because of his
wide culture and the diverse character of his work. Though held together
by his strong personality, it yet can be divided into the distinct
groups of comedies, tragedies, poems, and translations. The first of
these is the weakest, for Chapman was not a comic genius. 'The Blind
Beggar of Alexandria' and 'An Humorous Day's Mirth' deserve but a
passing mention. In 1605 'All Fooles' was published, acted six years
earlier under the name 'The World Runs on Wheels.' It is a realistic
satire, with some good scenes and character-drawing. 'The Gentleman
Usher' is full of poetry and ingenious situations. 'Monsieur D'Oline'
contains also some good comedy work. 'The Widow's Tears' tells the
well-known story of the Ephesian matron; though coarse, it is handled
not without comic talent. In his comedy work Chapman is neither new nor
original; he followed in Jonson's footsteps, and suggests moreover
Terence, Plautus, Fletcher, and Lyly. He has wit, satire, and sarcasm;
but along with these, poor construction and little invention. He was
going against his grain, and we have here the frankest expression of
"pot-boiling" to be found among the Elizabethan dramatists. Writing for
the stage was the only kind of literature that really paid; the
playhouse was to the Elizabethan what the paper-covered novel is to a
modern reader. This accounts for the enormous dramatic productivity of
the time, and also explains why the most finely endowed minds, in need
of money, produced dramas instead of other imaginative work. By the time
he wrote his comedies, Chapman had already won his place as poet and
translator, but it earned him no income. Pope, one hundred and
twenty-five years later, made a fortune by his translation of Homer. But
then the number of readers had increased, and publishers could afford to
give large sums to a popular author. Chapman takes rank among the
dramatists mainly by his four chief tragedies: 'Bussy d'Ambois,' 'The
Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois,' 'The Conspiracy of Charles, Duke of Byron,'
and 'The Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron.' They are unique among the
plays of the period, in that they deal with almost contemporary events
in French history; not with the purpose of exciting any feeling for or
against the parties introduced, but in calm ignoring of public opinion,
they bring recent happenings on the stage to suit the dramatist's
purpose. He drew his material mainly from the 'Historiae Sui Temporis' of
Jacques Auguste de Thou, but he troubled himself little about following
it with accuracy, or even painting the characters of the chief actors as
true to life. In these tragedies, more than in the comedies, we get
sight of Chapman the man; indeed, it is his great failing as playwright
that his own individuality is constantly cropping out. He alone, of all
the great Elizabethan dramatists, was unable to go outside of himself
and enter into the habits and thoughts of his characters. Chapman was
too much of a scholar and a thinker to be a successful delineator of
men. His is the drama of the man who thinks about life, not of one who
lives it in its fullness. He does not get into the hearts of men. He
has too many theories. Homer had become the ruling influence in his
life, and he looked at things from the Homeric point of view and
presented life epically. He is at his best in single didactic or
narrative passages, and exquisite bits of poetry are prodigally
scattered up and down the pages of his tragedies. Next to Shakespeare he
is the most sententious of dramatists. He sounded the depths of things
in thought which theretofore only Marlowe had done. He is the most
metaphysical of dramatists.
Yet his thought is sometimes too much for him, and he becomes obscure.
He packs words as tight as Browning, and the sense is often more
difficult to unravel. He is best in the closet drama. 'Caesar and
Pompey,' published in 1631 but never acted, contains some of his finest
thoughts.
Chapman also collaborated with other dramatists. 'Eastward Ho,' in 1605,
written with Marston and Jonson, is one of the liveliest and best
constructed Elizabethan comedies, combining the excellences of the three
men without their faults. Some allusion to the Scottish nation offended
King James; the authors were confined in Fleet Prison and barely escaped
having their ears and noses slit. With Shirley he wrote the comedy 'The
Ball' and the tragedy 'Chabot, Admiral of France.'
Chapman wrote comedies to make money, and tragedies because it was the
fashion of the day, and he studded these latter with exquisite passages
because he was a poet born. But he was above all a scholar with wide and
deep learning, not only of the classics but also of the Renaissance
literature. From 1613 to 1631 he does not appear to have written for the
stage, but was occupied with his translations of Homer, Hesiod, Juvenal,
Musaeus, Petrarch, and others. In 1614, at the marriage of the Princess
Elizabeth, was performed in the most lavish manner the 'Memorable Masque
of the two Honorable Houses or Inns of Court; the Middle Temple and
Lyncoln Inne.' Chapman also completed Marlowe's unfinished 'Hero and
Leander.'
His fame however rests on his version of Homer. The first portion
appeared in 1598: 'Seven Bookes of the Iliade of Homer, Prince of Poets;
Translated according to the Greeke in judgment of his best
Commentaries.' In 1611 the Iliad complete appeared, and in 1615 the
whole of the Odyssey; though he by no means reproduces Homer faithfully,
he approaches nearest to the original in spirit and grandeur. It is a
typical product of the English Renaissance, full of vigor and passion,
but also of conceit and fancifulness. It lacks the simplicity and the
serenity of the Greek, but has caught its nobleness and rapidity. As has
been said, "It is what Homer might have written before he came to years
of discretion." Yet with all its shortcomings it remains one of the
classics of Elizabethan literature. Pope consulted it diligently, and
has been accused of at times re-versifying this instead of the Greek.
Coleridge said of it:--
"The Iliad is fine, but less equal in the translation [than the
Odyssey], as well as less interesting in itself. What is
stupidly said of Shakespeare is really true and appropriate of
Chapman: 'Mighty faults counterpoised by mighty beauties.' ...
It is as truly an original poem as the 'Faerie Queen';--it will
give you small idea of Homer, though a far truer one than
Pope's epigrams, or Cowper's cumbersome, most anti-Homeric
Miltonisms. For Chapman writes and feels as a poet,--as Homer
might have written had he lived in England in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. In short, it is an exquisite poem in spite of
its frequent and perverse quaintnesses and awkwardness, which
are however amply repaid by almost unexampled sweetness and
beauty of language, all over spirit and feeling."
Keats's tribute, the sonnet 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer,'
attests another poet's appreciation of the Elizabethan's paraphrase.
Keats diligently explored this "new planet" that swam into his ken, and
his own poetical diction is at times touched by the quaintness and
fancifulness of the elder poet he admired.
Lamb, that most sympathetic critic of the old dramatists, speaks of him
as follows:--
"Webster has happily characterized the 'full and heightened'
style of Chapman, who of all the English play-writers perhaps
approaches nearest to Shakespeare in the descriptive and
didactic, in passages which are less purely dramatic. He could
not go out of himself, as Shakespeare could shift at pleasure,
to inform and animate other existences, but in himself he had
an eye to perceive and a soul to embrace all forms and modes of
being. He would have made a great epic poet, if indeed he has
not abundantly shown himself to be one; for his 'Homer' is not
so properly a translation as the stories of Achilles and
Ulysses rewritten. The earnestness and passion which he has put
into every part of these poems would be incredible to a reader
of more modern translations.... The great obstacle to Chapman's
translations being read is their unconquerable quaintness. He
pours out in the same breath the most just and natural, and the
most violent and crude expressions. He seems to grasp at
whatever words come first to hand while the enthusiasm is upon
him, as if all others must be inadequate to the divine meaning.
But passion (the all-in-all in poetry) is everywhere present,
raising the low, dignifying the mean, and putting sense into
the absurd. He makes his readers glow, weep, tremble, take any
affection which he pleases, be moved by words, or in spite of
them be disgusted and overcome their disgust."