The Shadow of Night

The Shadow of Night is a long poem written by George Chapman; it was first published in 1594, in an edition printed by Richard Field for William Ponsonby, the prestigious publisher of Edmund Spenser and Sir Philip Sidney.

The poem was Chapman's first significant literary work; it is furnished with abundant notes and references to classical Greek and Roman authors (41 in total, drawn from the Mythologiae of Niccolo Conti). The title page of the first edition gives the title in both English and Greek (Σκία νυκτός, "Skia nyktos"). The poem's reception as an important development in English verse established Chapman's initial literary reputation, which he would later expand and deepen with his subsequent poems, plays, and translations.

Chapman dedicated the work, which he calls a "poor and strange trifle," to fellow poet Matthew Roydon. The dedication contrasts superficial readers, who read verse to "curtail a tedious hour," with those few who "entertained learning in themselves, to the vital warmth of freezing science...." He names three prominent noblemen of the day, "ingenious Darby, deep-searching Northumberland, and skill-embracing heir of Hunsdon...." These were Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby, well known as the patron of the acting company Lord Strange's Men; Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, the so-called "Wizard Earl;" and George Carey, who succeeded his father as Lord Hunsdon in 1596 and as Lord Chamberlain of England in 1597. Carey served as the patron of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the acting company of William Shakespeare.

The three noblemen and their associates, like Sir Walter Raleigh, John Dee and Thomas Harriot among others, have been interpreted as members of a clique of advanced thinkers called The School of Night, who were interested in promoting new ideas like the Copernican and Galilean view of a heliocentric solar system, and the spirit of open inquiry that underlay it. Chapman has been seen by some as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's sonnets.

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