SOURCE: LaHood, Marvin J. “Chapman's Stoicism.” Lock Haven Review, no. 9 (1967): 8-15.

In the essay below, LaHood discusses Chapman's experimentation with Senecan Stoicism from inception in Bussy D'Ambois to maturation in The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois.

George Chapman (1559-1634) is sometimes ignored, often misunderstood, and almost always underrated by literary historians. His life spans the rise, fruition, and decay of the greatest dramatic age in the history of English literature. A student at Oxford, he may have attended Cambridge as well. He did not begin to write plays until he was thirty-seven; this is reflected in the highly circumspective tone of much of his drama. An important translator of Homer, he was also influenced by him. Jonson was a close friend, and with him and Marston, Chapman wrote a fine comedy, Eastward Ho. Like Jonson, he knew and loved the classics, and believed in the high seriousness of the...