George Chapman

George Chapman ( probably * 1559, † May 12 1634 in London ) was an English playwright and poet.

Life

He was born in Hitchin in Hertfordshire and studied at Oxford University in 1574, but without obtaining a degree. When his earliest published works, the poem The Shadow of Night ( 1593) and Ovid's Banquet of Sense ( 1595 ) apply. Towards the end of the last decade of the 16th century, he became a successful playwright who worked for Philip Henslowe and later for the Children of the Chapel. His comedies are On Humorous Day's Mirth (1597 ), All Fools ( 1599), Monsieur d' Olive ( 1606 ), The Gentleman Usher ( 1606 ) and May Day ( 1611).

Chapman's earliest get retarded play The Blind Beggar of Alexandria was listed in 1596 and listed two years later by Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia among the best plays ( "best for tragedie " and the "best for comedie "). His most famous tragedies borrowed their theme from the recent French history Bussy D' Ambois ( 1607), The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron ( 1608), The Revenge of Bussy D' Ambois ( 1613 ) and The Tragedy of Chabot, Admiral of France (published in 1639 ).

He wrote several pieces in conjunction with other poets, as Eastward Ho ( 1605 ), along with Ben Jonson and John Marston, with satirical references to the Scots, who brought the author into prison. The play Rollo Duke of Normandy ( date of origin unknown), he wrote with John Fletcher, Philip Massinger and Jonson.

He also wrote poems like De Guiana, Carmen Epicum ( 1596), a sequel to Christopher Marlowe 's unfinished Hero and Leander ( 1598 ), and Euthymiae Raptus; or the Tears of Peace (1609 ). Some experts see Chapman in the so-called "rival poet" of Shakespeare's sonnets.

From 1598, he published his translation of the Iliad, in 1616 appeared the whole issue Iliad and Odyssey in the first complete English translation, The Whole Works of Homer. Chapman's Homer has been highlighted by John Keats in his famous poem ' On First Looking into Chapman's Homer '.

Chapman died in poverty in the parish of St. Giles in the Fields. He was buried on May 12, 1634 in the cemetery. In his memory a monument was erected by Inigo Jones.