George Chapman - Homage

Homage

In Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem, The Revolt of Islam, Shelley quotes a verse of Chapman's as homage within his dedication "to Mary__ __", presumably his wife Mary Shelley:

There is no danger to a man, that knows
What life and death is: there's not any law
Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful
That he should stoop to any other law.

Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde, quoted the same verse in his part fiction, part literary criticism, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.".

The English poet Keats wrote "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" for his friend Charles Cowden Clarke in October 1816. The poem begins "Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold" and is much quoted. For example, P.G. Wodehouse in his review of the first Flashman novel that came to his attention: "Now I understand what that ‘when a new planet swims into his ken’ excitement is all about." Arthur Ransome uses two references from it in his children's books, the Swallows and Amazons series.

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Famous quotes containing the word homage:

    There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. In America there is a touch of shame when a man exhibits the evidences of large property, as if after all it needed apology. But the Englishman has pure pride in his wealth, and esteems it a final certificate. A coarse logic rules throughout all English souls: if you have merit, can you not show it by your good clothes and coach and horses?
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    Do homage to thy King,
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