James says about his book: ‘I wanted to balance the stresses of school routines and exams with the camaraderie and fun, such as witnessing a Master bopping at a girls’ school dance, or a scary night time jaunt to The Wheatsheaf on the back of my brother’s motorbike. He was following in the footsteps of his two brothers, the scholarly Patrick (West 1964-67), now an acclaimed writer, and John (West 1967-71) – the notorious ‘Monty’ Harpur, who was believed to be responsible for every misdemeanour committed at the school, from adding a third hand to the school clock to driving an exhibition army tank around the South Field. Ī quite marvellous work…an Odyssey, a Ulysses shaken up in the snow-dome of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.’ - From the foreword by STEPHEN FRYīorn and raised in Weybridge, James entered Cranleigh in 1970.Here among bell-tormented corridors and the ‘Crimean beds’ of the dormitories can be found a cast of school characters, customs and events, including a sex education lesson that backfires, a midnight fire drill, away matches in crumbly coaches, and legendary masters. Published by Two Rivers Press, The Examined Life is a powerful, poignant and humorous account of school life during the 1970s. OC Poet and Novelist, James Harpur, wrote the whole collection as a reflection of his teenage years as a boarder at Cranleigh. This new Wordsworth edition of Chapman's Homer contains accessible annotation, and a detailed introduction that places his masterpiece in the context of his own day, and discusses its influences on later poets.A former pupil’s book of poetry about his school years, The Examined Life, has been praised by literary critics and celebrities, and awarded the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize. John Keats expressed his admiration for the resulting work in the famous sonnet, 'On first looking into Chapman's Homer': 'Much have I travelled in the realms of gold.'
Chapman believed himself inspired by the spirit of Homer himself, and matches the breadth and power of the original with a complex and stunning idiom of his own.
This poem has been translated many times over the years, but Chapman's sinewy, gorgeous rendering (1616) stands in a class of its own. His colourful adventures, his endurance, his love for his wife and son have the same power to move and inspire readers today as they did in Archaic Greece, 2800 years ago.
Homer's great epic describes the many adventures of Odysseus, Greek warrior, as he strives over many years to return to his home island of Ithaca after the Trojan War.
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