Chapman, George
Chapman, George ( ?1559 – 1634 ),born near Hitchin, in Hertfordshire. His Homeric translations suggest that he had a university education, possibly at Oxford, if A. Wood is to be believed. Some of his young manhood was spent as a soldier in the Netherlands. After more than a decade as a professional playwright he began to pursue courtly patrons, with limited success, and turned to his major work of translating Homer , completed in 1616 . Minor works of translation occupied him until his death, which seems to have been in poverty.
Chapman's earliest published works were non-dramatic poems: The Shadow of Night ( 1594 ), a pair of complex Neoplatonic poems on night and day; Ovid's Banquet of Sense ( 1595 ), an allegorical account of Ovid 's courtship of Corinna; and his completion of Marlowe's Hero and Leander ( 1598 ). Seven comedies are extant: The Blind Beggar of Alexandria...
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