Chapman, George (1559?-1634?), was an English poet, playwright, and scholar. He was concerned with both the philosophical and the moral significance of poetry, as well as the importance of classical learning.
Chapman was born in Hertfordshire. His first publication was a philosophical poem, The Shadow of Night (1594). In 1598, he published his continuation of Christopher Marlowe’s poem Hero and Leander and a translation of part of the Iliad. As a playwright, Chapman wrote both comedies and tragedies, including the famous tragedy Bussy D’Ambois (1604). His tragedies usually center on a great man’s relation to his society. They concern ideals of order in each person and in society, and the corruption of these ideals.
In 1616, Chapman published his impressive translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey. John Keats expressed his awe at the imaginative world opened to him by these translations in his sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”
