Chapman's Homer: The ""Odyssey""

Immortalized by John Keats in his poem ""On First Looking into Chapman's Homer,"" two nearly 400-year-old masterpieces of canonical translation Chapman's versions of The Iliad (re-published in 1998) and The Odyssey (coming this month) are now both available in U.S. editions for the first time since 1957. Even stalwart fans of Robert Fagles's recent triumphs will want these versions, which retain their visionary clarity and power. In the words of Keats: ""Oft of one wide expanse had I been told/ That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:/ Yet did I never breathe its pure serene/ Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:/ Then felt I like some watcher of the skies/ When a new planet swims into his ken;/ Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes/ He stared at the Pacific and all his men/ Look'd at each other with a wild surmise / Silent, upon a peak in Darien."" ( Apr.)