Golden Foolery
Andrew Hadfield assesses George Chapman as an enigmatic poet whose difficult, learned writing combines esoteric and neo-Platonic interests with irony, humour, and acute awareness of poetic artifice. In The Shadow of the Night, apparently exalted invocations of darkness and divine inspiration coexist with striking absurdities, while Ovid’s Banquet of Sense leaves unresolved whether sensual experience leads toward higher love or matters chiefly in itself. Hadfield therefore questions editor Zenón Luis-Martínez’s consistent interpretation of Chapman as a convinced neo-Platonist offering readers a window onto the divine, arguing that occult philosophy did not necessarily define or constrain Chapman’s imagination. Nevertheless, he judges the edition extraordinarily detailed and helpful, crediting its extensive introduction, section summaries, and full notes even where its governing interpretation remains debatable.