homer chapman george 1559 1634 trans (1 Ergebnisse)

At London : printed [by Richard Field and William Jaggard] for Nathaniell Butter, [1616?]. FIRST EDITION. Pagination [28], 341, [9]; [10], 193, [3], 195-349, 352-376, [4] p. [STC, 13624; Pforzheimer 169; 170]. Fine red morocco bindings, gilt tooled spines in panels, gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, gilt binder's stamp to front paste-down, "Bound y Ramage London". John Ramage was born in London in 1836. When he came out of his apprenticeship in 1856, he took the unusual step for an English binder of going to Paris and working under Lortic, one of the leading French binders of the day. In 1860 Ramage returned to Britain and purchased the Edinburgh business of Alexander Banks Jnr, stating in the 1861 census returns that he employed eight men, three boys, six women and one girl. Three years later he moved his business to London, where there was more work. He moved to larger premises in Warwick Lane in 1870, and from there he went to Warwick Square and in 1891 to Creed Lane. 1 The Whole Works of Homer comprises the first complete edition of the Iliads and the Odysses. For clarity, we include collations of the separate titles: The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. Neuer before in any languag truly traanslated. With a Com[m]ent uppon some of his chiefe places; Donne according to the Greeke By Geo: Chapman. At London: printed [by Richard Field and William Jaggard] for Nathaniell Butter. [c. 1611/2?]. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. Pagination [28], 341, [9], p. In this state, teco running titles of the Iliad have "HOMERS" (roman). Signatures: pi *6(-*1), A-2F6 2G8; (initial blank leaf present and genuine, lacks blank leaf 2G8). 190 leaves present. [STC, 13634; Pforzheimer 169]. Homer's Odysses Translated according to ye Greeke By Geo: Chapman. Imprinted at London by Rich: Field, [and William Jaggard] for Nathaniell Butter. [1614/5?]. FIRST EDITION. Pagination ; [10], 193, [3], 195-349, 352-376, [4], p. Signatures: A6, B-Q6 R8 S-2H6 2I8. Leaves A1, R8, blank, (lacking final blank 2I8). Leaf A6 bears errata. The engraved title has been slightly trimmed and mounted on the original initial blank (A1). [STC, 13637; Pforzheimer 170]. This copy of The Whole Works of Homer retains the original engraved titles to the Iliads and Odysses, and includes the memorial engraving to Prince Henry, and the portrait of Chapman which is only found in some copies. "It is a poet's echo of a poet - loud and bold", wrote one commentator of Chapman's Iliads: "an Elizabethan Englishman calling across the centuries to ancient Greece".2 This set continues these resonances, so that they reach from Homer's ancient original to this fêted Elizabethan translation of his works, to an 18th century Shakespeare scholar and his classicist contemporary, to Alexander Pope whose translation of Homer he edits. Chapman's Homer occupies a unique place in the history of English literature and of literary translation. In the words of the critic George Saintsbury, "For more than two centuries they were the resort of all who, unable to read Greek, wished to know what Greek was. Chapman is far nearer Homer than any modern translator in any modern language." He was certainly "no straightforward translator"; Mark Thornton Burnett describes how "he personalized the epic, appropriating his source and making Homer a writer of the early modern moment".3 George Chapman (1559/60-1634) achieved some renown as a poet and playwright, becoming one of the main dramatists for the Admiral's Men, as well as for other companies including the Children of the Queen's Revels. His dramatic output included Sir Giles Goosecap, The Gentleman Usher, and Bussy D'Ambois, becoming more politically charged over time, and reaction to this, along with a perennial lack of funds, led Chapman to withdraw from London life around 1612. In 1598, Chapman published Seaven Bookes of the Jliades which contained the "first, the second, and the seventh to eleventh books inclusive".4 It was reprinted circa 1609 in Homer Prince of Poets. For the 1611/2 edition of the Iliads, Chapman made fresh translations of the first and second books and "the last twelve books appear for the first time".5 Around the year 1616 The Whole Works of Homer appeared. It comprised unsold copies of the Iliads [c. 1611/2] with the recently published Odysses [c. 1614/5], a general title page, an engraved memorial to Prince Henry, and in some copies, a portrait of Chapman. As noted above, this copy includes the Chapman portrait and retains the original engraved titles. This is a rare first collected edition Chapman's Homer, with several points of interest that make it still more compelling. Perhaps the most immediately obvious is the presence of the original title pages to the Iliads and Odysses, which are often cancelled in favour of the general title page for the whole set (pagination above reflects this arrangement and includes the preliminary blank to the "Odyssey"). Also gracing this copy is an inscription to the front endpaper: "The Gift of George Steevens Esq. to Gilbert Wakefield June 28th. 1794" (the hand is Wakefield's). Both Steevens and Wakefield were key, if controversial, cultural figures in the late 18th century. The scholar George Steevens (1736-1800) was the first of the "three great eighteenth-century editors of Shakespeare" (ODNB), preceding Edmond Malone and Isaac Reed, and was a friend and collaborator of Samuel Johnson. He contributed notes to some of Johnson's editions of the works of Shakespeare, and published his own edition (1766), but was inclined to antagonise his peers and, worse still, perpetrated a series of literary hoaxes that damaged his reputation. Gilbert Wakefield (1756-1801), although known chiefly as a biblical scholar (his translation of the New Testament (1792) went through several editions), was a prodigious if not rigorous writer and commentator on classical authors such as Horace, Virgil, the Greek tragedians, Lucretius, and Homer, the last of whom he treated in a 12-vol.