Summary
The speaker describes the effect of Chapman's translations upon him through two metaphors: first, the speaker feels like an astronomer who has just discovered a new planet, and second, the speaker feels like Hernan Cortez, a Spanish conquistador famous for exploring Central America in the 16th century. In the last two lines, as the speaker pictures Cortez staring down the Pacific, he also imagines his crew looking at each other upon a mountain's peak, high above a landscape no one else from their native country has gazed upon before.
Analysis
In Keats' customary Petrarchan-sonnet fashion, the poem's volta occurs at the beginning of line 9. The word "Then" signals the speaker's transition from describing his previous journeys in Homer's universe to articulating the change that occurred within him after reading Chapman's translations. Likewise, the word "felt" signifies a change in being: the speaker not only sees Homer's universe with new eyes, but he approaches Homer's world as though he were a new person. He isn't simply another young poet who has made his rounds through the western islands: he's an explorer en route to new turf, an astronomer who has just made a remarkable discovery in the night sky's wide, shining expanse.
The poem's themes of voyage and discovery are emphasized by the metaphors the speaker uses to describe the change that occurs within him. By likening himself to an astronomer who notices a new planet, and by likening himself to the Spanish explorer, the speaker suggests that reading Chapman's Homer is like gazing upon a new world, the first of his kind to set eyes upon such a marvelous sight. The astronomer's treasure arrives in the form of knowledge, while the most enticing element of new land for Cortez and his men is the possibility of conquest and glory. Likewise, these lines are filled with joy and anticipation, characterized by the speaker's eagerness to rediscover Homer's familiar universe, made new.
The speaker's wonder at the prospects of Chapman's Homer borders on sublime. Like Cortez's men, silent and awestruck upon a mountain's peak, the speaker approaches Cortez's work with reverence. Even if the sestet is more focused on articulating the sensation of wonder, the last six lines continue in the poem's visionary mode, because the speaker sets us up to imagine what the astronomer, Cortez, and Cortez's men must be seeing. The phrase "eagle eyes" emphasizes the speaker's attention to detail as he looks into Chapman's Homer, while the images of the ocean extending to the horizon and the view from the mountain's peak correspond the metaphorical expansion of the boundaries of Homer's world.
As the poem ends in silence, we could imagine the speaker reading on the edge of his seat, with bated breath at the prospect of undertaking a new voyage through Homer's world. Or, we could picture him absentmindedly gazing in the distance, his voice trailing off, canvassing in his mind the broad expanse of Homer's world, the mountains and seas that stood between Odysseus on his journey home.
