The Simplicity of Keats' Similes

Keats’ “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” is fairly straightforward and self-explanatory: it is a poem about poetry. It is a simplistic approach to the appreciation of poetry that is reminiscent of previous poets “change the world” mentality that we have seen before. The speaker begins the poem by stating that he has traveled the world and seen the “realms of gold” (1). He sets the precedence that few things can surprise or amaze him. While these lines may be beautiful, the intrigue of the poem begins on line 9 and is condensed in two similes.

“Then felt I like some watcher of the skies/ When a new planet swims into his ken” (9-10). The first simile compares the speaker of the poem to an astronomer – hearing Chapman’s understanding of Homer is essentially an exploration or discovery.

“Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes/ He star’d at the Pacific – and all his men/ Look’d at each other in wild surmise -- / Silent, upon a peak in Darien” (11-14). Again, this second simile compares the hearing of Chapman’s translation to a discovery of something unknown.

The emphasis on words such as “new” (10) and the description of first sightings is an interesting comparison to the speaker’s situation because he makes it clear that he actually has heard Homer before yet has never “breathe[d] its pure serene” until Chapman spoke of it out loud. This indicates the power that poetry has to change – or the power for the familiar to become novel again. This act of appreciation then becomes an act of passivity. In both similes the speaker is a “watcher,” (9) “star’d,” (12) “look’d,” (13) and finally is “silent” (14). This stands in stark contrast to Chapman’s “speak[ing] out loud and bold” (8). Keats seems to be playing with the idea of poetry as passive versus active – as if both experiences exist in the reading of poetry: the active interpretation of the poem, the translation and analysis, as well as the passive enjoyment and discovery that the speaker is experiencing in the poem. If this is the case, it presents a fun and ironic presentation of the poem in which the speaker is both enjoying the poetry of Homer, yet simultaneously actively presenting the reader with his own poem. In addition, the poem presents the idea that those on the passive side are literally left speechless and perhaps are not capable of doing anything besides existing in isolation and appreciating in silence.