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Mike M writes:
I imagine there's been plenty of speculation on Pale Fire's 'On
Chapman's Homer', relating to Keats' poem, CK's ignorance of baseball
(assuming an editorial transposition -- well, he never excelled at
sport), whether the Sox really did win 5-4. I suspect that there's been
less ink spilled on Chapman himself, the one who performed the
translation. His translation is probably not one that would have met
with Nabokov's approval. 'Free' scarcely describes it, when you compare
it to more literal efforts; at times it is a reinterpretation of, or
commentary on Homer.
Chapman has been linked with Shakespeare's sonnets as possibly being
the 'rival poet'. The only reason to mention this is that the game
Nabokov concocts is between the Boston Red Sox and the New York
Yankees, whose rivalry is legendary, and already existed when he wrote
Pale Fire. The juxtaposition of a famous/notorious sports rivalry with
a poetic one is not inconceivable.
The case for Chapman as the rival poet was most extensively elaborated
by Arthur Acheson in his 'Shakespeare and the Rival Poet' (1903),
though the evidence doesn't always support his specific conclusions
throughout the book. J. M. Robertson ('Shakespeare and Chapman', 1917)
came to a similar conclusion about Chapman, albeit disavowing some of
Acheson's methods. Robertson (p. 12, fn) draws attention to one very
interesting example of Chapman's response to Shakespeare's verse. In
his play Sir Gyles Goosecappe, written about 1602 it is believed, a
doctor, called perversely Veroles, is consulting with his patient.
Mid-way through his speech, Veroles says
" ... do not make / Those ground works of eternity, you lay / Means to
your ruin, and short being here:'
No need to try to make sense of it. But look at Shakespeare's sonnet
125, whose lines 3-4 read like this:
"Or laid great bases for eternity, which prove more short than waste or
ruining".
Shakespeare first, then Chapman, compare & contrast:
Laid = lay; great bases = ground works; eternity = eternity; short =
short; ruining = ruin.
Robertson commented: "The coincidence is rather curious". I suppose
when one poet (Chapman) butchers another's poetry, it is curious.