George Chapman's Musaean 'Light': Origin, Primordiality and Priority from The Divine Poem of Musaeus (1616) to Hero and Leander (1598)

Abstract:

Published in 1616, George Chapman's 'The Divine Poem of Musaeus' continued his programme of translations of the works by those Greek authors regarded in the Renaissance as the origins of Western poetry—Homer, Musaeus, and Hesiod. However, Musaeus's only extant poem, 'The Things Concerning Hero and Leander', is a short erotic epyllion composed towards the end of the fifth century ce. This poem had been the source of Christopher Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander' (1598) and of its continuation by Chapman himself in a second edition that same year. The present article investigates the circumstances of Chapman's return to his earlier subject, as well as his assumption of the outmoded hypothesis of Musaeus's identity as 'First of all Poets'. It also discusses the import of this assumption to his theory of poetry and to his practice as a poet and as a translator.