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Article: Keats's On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.(John Keats)
- Article from:
- The Explicator
- Article date:
- June 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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From the 1816 publication of John Keats's "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" in Leigh Hunt's Examiner through Tennyson's famous 1861 annotation "history here requires Balboa," no issue was raised about the historical correctness of Keats's reference to Cortez. (1) Since then, dozens of critics have explored and come to diverse opinions about whether Keats intentionally substituted Cortez for Balboa. (2)
A pattern of discovery and rediscovery embedded in the sonnet may provide another key in resolving this long-standing literary debate. In "Sleep and Poetry," Keats informs us that "poet kings" need not be the discoverers of truth or beauty; they must "simply ...