Negative Capability: Embracing Uncertainty and Celebrating the Mysterious.
In a letter to his brothers, George and Thomas, found in Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends and dated December 21, 1817, Keats uses the phrase that has come to be the single most emblematic phrase of his entire surviving correspondence, even though he only makes mention of it once: “Negative Capability” — the willingness to embrace uncertainty, live with mystery, and make peace with ambiguity. Triggered by Keats’s disagreement with English poet and philosopher Coleridge, whose quest for definitive answers over beauty laid the foundations for modern-day reductionism, the concept is a beautiful articulation of a familiar sentiment — that life is about living the questions, that the unknown is what drives science, that the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.
Negative Capability made easy through the appeal of images!
What is this man doing with Keats’s concept? How do you relate to “negative capability”? In other words, do you deem it a useful concept to bear in mind in your life? Why (not)?
Negative capability explained in words!
“The wise man questions the wisdom of others because he questions his own, the foolish man, because it is different from his own.” —Leo Stein, American art collector and critic
In an 1817 letter to a friend, the poet John Keats describes one of the qualities that makes writers like Shakespeare so great: negative capability. Keats defines this trait as “…when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” In other words, this is the ability to sublimate one’s own individual assumptions about the world and write about uncertain (or potentially polarizing) topics in such a way that the author’s own views remain unknown. It is also the recognition that there are often grey areas in life which cannot be resolved through rational means. This requires an extraordinary degree of objectivity, and it’s much harder than it seems. To enter into the mind of other people (or things) and speak from their point of view is an essential goal for writers.Often some of the most engaging literary works are those where there is no clear side taken on contentious issues (such as the free will versus predestination dichotomy in Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex). But the question is, how can writers break free from their own personal perceptions and approach subjects from a more objective point of view?
1. Read writers who are good at negative capability: Keats, Shakespeare, and Sophocles. But there are plenty of other notable authors, such as Emily Dickenson, William Wordsworth, Anne Rice, Walt Whitman, and John Updike.
2. Learn to view situations from other people’s perspectives. Imagine not what you would do if you were facing their circumstances, but rather think about what they would do and why.
3. Step into the unknown. Force yourself to write about subjects or situations you are uncomfortable with (or know little about).
4. Write in a new genre. Tell a familiar tale in a different format. Different literary conventions require different sensibilities, and this can lead to breakthroughs in our perceptions of subjects.
One of the joys of reading is having the opportunity to experience situations from someone else’s perspective. To do this convincingly, writers must learn to put aside their own ideas about the world and imagine alternative possibilities. This is terra incognita for many people, but by embracing this approach, you may discover new avenues of creative potential, and this is exactly what KEATS teachers US! He would have been a great creative writing instructor, wouldn’t he?
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Different painters were inspired by this poem. Look at their works of art. In the light of the analysis of the poem and your reading of it, which painting do you like best? Why? Try to substantiate your choice with references to the poem itself.
John William Waterhouse
Frank Dicksee
Frank Cadogan Cowper
Arthur Hughes
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Look at the following videos to learn more about this great, yet difficult, ode.
The BBC webpage has an interesting section dedicated to The Romantics, worth browsing it: you can see the original manuscript too, if you are interested.
I highly suggest you listen to/watch the following lectures on the ode, so that you expose yoruself to different ways of analysing a poem, to different expressions to explain the same concepts. It is good listening comprehension and a good way to expand your vocabulary and hone your listening skill. Which lecture do you like best? Why? As a student, which teacher/lecturer of these would appeal to you the most? Substantiate your choice. We will discuss this point in class together.
Do you agree that art takes its truth from life and then returns it to life as beauty as is suggested in the poem? The poet seems to suggest that only the dead are immortal how are they immortalized?
This is a detailed analysis that I prepared some time ago for other students of mine. I decided to post it here because some of you may find it useful.
BBC Omnibus, 1995 – To commemorate the bicentenary of sublime English poet John Keats, Andrew Motion (now Poet Laureate) recreates the final, futile voyage from England to Italy
If you go to Rome, do not miss the Keats-Shelley house. It is a great place to visit, especially for people like you, who had the chance to study English literature.
Negative capability is a word that can have many interpretations. Eben Pagan ,a guru of economy, says that negative capability is the ability to cancel decisions guided by emotions for the identification in the person we are talking to. This skill is used in world of business to increase the gain and to overcome the rules. In my opinion the negative capability is the capacity to let oneself go, to know new things not worrying about the events that would happen soon. In other words is the ability of having no prejudices, to open the mind for new points of view. Negative capability is also the concept that there aren’t answers for everything and we (people) haven’t the control on the world. This concept in our lives can be very useful because make we achieve new objectives and success. Or , in life, is also usefull this skill to stay in tranquillity and to reach the pleasure.
So, whose view do you like better? Keat’s or E.Pagan’s?
Do you deem negative capability the ability that you can use to gain pleasure?
The painting I like best is the one made by John William Waterhouse, he managed to emphasize the sensuality and erotism of the poem whereas the other painters did not; the poem has many interpretations, one of them sees the ballad as the poet’s rebellion against the pains of love, which is the one I prefer. In his letters Keats said that he particularly resented the loss of freedom that comes with falling in love. Waterhouse underlines this privation in the way the woman holds on to him with her long hair, almost kissing him, while he is still holding the spear trying to resist her; but as we can see by the inclination of his body he is about to fall, charmed by her words. His banner has already fallen and it is red, colour of passion, and it resembles blood, foreshadowing his imminent dream where he will be seeing the kings and princes killed by the woman, who embodies Death.
The painting is less gruesome than the one made by Frank Cadogan Cowper but is still able to express through the withered nature a sense of decay and fatality.
Definitely! You may even say that the loss of freedom caused by falling in love can be found in the woman’s hair, which function as a noose used to ensnare her preys.
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI – FRANK DICKSEE
Among four paintings, which reproduce La Belle Dame sans Merci, I prefer that of Frank Dicksee, because while I was reading I imagined a scene similiar to the one. First of all gaze stops at faces of the two protagonists, who look at each other in a penetrating way. The Lady has infinite beauty, as is described in line 14 “ Full beautiful – a faery’s child”. She has got very long hair , as if they wrap and trap the knight. She has a pure beauty, but she has also a sensual stance. So a beauty idealised, oscillating between the spiritual and the carnal. The Dame wears a garland on the head both in the painting and in the ballad. The knight has opens arms and he is paralyzed by her hypnotic gaze. Moreover although she was brought on a horse by the knight , in this scene, considering his condition, it seems that is the lady to lead him there, where other knights were led. So he is only a innocent victim , who is fallen into a trap of love: trust , which he had towards the woman and she deceived. In this painting the only thing that isn’t represented in a right way is the landscape, that it seems vernal, instead in the ballad is autumnal. Maybe the author of the painting wanted to show a fairy setting, that makes woman’s lies seem true.
A plausible interpretation!
My favourite picture is that of Sir Frank Dicksee. The painting was inspired by a late medieval ballad of the fifteenth century, written by Alain Chartier, a French poet, and recovery in the nineteenth century by John Keats in “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” , in two versions similar to each other. I choose this painting because there are a lot of element that depicting the story of the ballad: there is the horse, the knight with his armor, the lady with her beautiful dress and the garland on his head. Another important element is the landscape: there are flowers, meadows, trees, but primarily the lake. The lake is very important because in the poem it refers to autumn and mirrors the state of mind of the poet. In the end of the poem also there is this reference but it alludes to death forming a circular movement because it ends how it starts. In conclusion I choose this painting because I was struck by the harmony that transmit you and beautiful colors that have.
The mild colours give a touch of calmness and tranquillity to the scene, which obviously is in contrast with the plight that will soon hit the knight!
In the light of the analysis of the poem and my reading of it, the painting I like best is the one of Franck Discksee, because I was particularly impressed with the background, the beauty and spontaneity of the lady, which brings about the knight’s petrified posture.
She leans from the horse just as it is pointed out in the poem and she is whispering words that spells him.
The naturalness of her is in contrast to the immobilization of him, completely under the yoke of the girl, who deceives him and she is bringing him straight to its end.
This painting is the metaphor of falling in love and it represents at best how a sweet voice and honeyed words can be a trap even to the strongest knight.
He is carried away by her beauty and her voice. He does not seem to be valiant enough to see through the real nature of the young woman.
Of all the paintings of the “Belle dame sans merci” I liked more the picture of Frank Dicksee, because it is the one that best portrays the story. In fact, in the picture, the knight has a look literally mesmerized by the singing of the beautiful girl, as he writes in his ballad Keat, and also there is the detail of the floral gift, donated to the belle dame sans merci. The girl has the long and wavy red hair that strongly enhance the wild and demonic factor that makes her like a creature so seemingly innocent and beautiful than it really is, ruthless and diabolic. Perilous, in the representation, the woman is in an elevated position relative to men, indicating her dominance in what the knight thinks mutual love unaware of what awaits him.
Unawareness is the trap from which he won’t be able to escape. He becomes aware in the dream, but it is too late. His destiny is marked. No return is possible.
I liked the second Quard most (which one of Frank Dicksee ) . In my opinion it expresses many of the concepts inherent in the Keats ballad : Beauty of the femme fatale , a mystery that leads to death and the supernatural element . The knight and the lady are united and form a harmonious wheel , which emphasizes woman’s beauty. The whole landscape is meant to bring out the charm and enchantment of lady sans mercì . This theme is important as it will remain forever a source of inspiration and torment to mankind. In addition, the lake behind the two characters was not chosen randomly , in fact in Celtic mythology it rappresents the complicity between beauty and deception. observing better the situation it seems that the woman is whispering sweet words to the knight , she’s probably using her supernatural powers. They consist in singing nice melodies , but they will be fatal for the poor knight . At this point we find the theme of mystery because we don’t know what terrible fate touches this man , because he is helpless in front of the ” Feary ‘s child ,” he can’t do anything against her that has him in thrall. All of these elements that are represented plus the cool hills landscape imply death. Colors remind of a late summer sunset , early fall and is to symbolize that something is reaching the end. death in the knight’s case.
For me “Negative Capability” is the ability to understand completely everything that surrounds us: understand its emotions, its behaviors and its thoughts. Just BE IT.
And, by doing this, we have not to be us at that moment, but we just have to forget what we are to understand and, therefore, BE that thing or person.
In this manner we are able to learn other ways of being in order to free ourself of prejudices and not to criticize everything we consider different.
In this way we can understand other ways of thinking and, by doing so, there won’t be conflicts because everyone tries not to oppose the thought of the other but to accept it.
The man in the video uses in a wrong way “Negative Capability” because he pratices it to manipulate people: he identifies himself in them to understand what are their weaknesses and use them in order to make people buy what he sells.
This is not the purpose for which we have to use ” Nagative Capability” but, in my opinion, this ability is meant to empathize with other people to understand them and their way of being in order to live in a world free of struggles.
There may be different opinions but we have to try to understand entirely all of them before imposing our on the other.
If I have to explain what negative capability is I would say that is the ability of human beings to deny their beliefs to understand the ones of othes. Keats says that we have to communicate even with people who have different beliefs, certainties and ideas from ours. For this reason our task is to try to go out from our world and communicate with all the others.
In my opinion ”Negative capability” in our lives could be a positive or negative thing. Positive because try to think not only with our ideas and to think with the mind of others people could stop lot of conflicts, prejudices, and why not even racism. To make an example if you deny, for a short time, your idea of “thin is beauty” you could accept even those who you think were ugly only because they’re fat.
On the other side I saw the negative thing of “negative capability” watching the video of the man speaking about this theme. He is teaching to others sellers how to become successful businessmen using negative capability only to manipulate the mind of people to convince them to buy their products.
In my point of view negative capability is not a way to manipulate people’s mind but a way to accept the ideas of all human beings.
Valentina Porro 5°F
The most important concept in John Keats’ poetry is that of Negative Capability. The poet introduced this concept to highlight the capability that poets have to understand better things. It is not too easy to understand this concept but as far as I understood this capability, I thought that is not only a feature of the poet but sometimes this is a capability that also I and people, who are not poet, have got. Keats identified this concept with the skill that poets have to deny themselves for a short period of time and by doing this they free themselves from their prejudices, their opinions and from their points of view. When they reach this “state of freedom”, they are free to understand the deep message of things, they can understand completely other people and feel what they are feeling. With this ability poets are in a state that is free of doubts and it is like that they, by understanding deeply things, nature and other people, manage to mold themselves with the thing that they are observing. I think that understanding this concept is really important because we can do something, even if we are not poets, like denying our self for a period of time to understand better other people. Sometimes I think that people are too self-centered and self-confident that they do not really understand other people’s situations. In fact I think that if we use sometimes this capability, we will understand everything better and we will learn new things. But if we keep staying in our position and we focus only in our point of view we will never be actually part of a community. Moreover I want to highlight that the director of Get Altitude explains indirectly the pros of Negative Capability that can be used to manipulate people decisions. In fact he explains that if we use this skill we are able to understand other people, their thoughts and what they want. This can be seen both as a pros and a cons of Negative Capability because if we understand a person we can also behave in a way that hurts him/her.
Negative Capability for John Keats is capability of a man to become someone else for a short period of time in order to understand better what an other person thinks and feels. In this way you investigate what is happening with this individual, his sensations and perhaps you are able to discover something new and profound about yourself, something which you have never thought about.
I personally use this type of capability when I am trying to understand the reaction or behavior of someone with whom I disagree. I always (or almost always) try to put myself into this person’s shoes, and see what I would probably do in that specific case. After all this reasoning sometimes I start to realize that probably my first opinion was wrong, and I change or rethink it.
It is obvious that the businessman from the video uses his knowledge of the typical behavior of people in order to become successful and rich, so he manipulates peoples weaknesses in a bad way, and not to help them.
Semenyuk Iryna
Negative capability
As human beings, and first of all, as animal (because we should never forget that the human being is an animal) our relationship with things is possible just through our senses. Let’s try to focus on them and their effect on us: Wordsworth claims that the contact that we have with nature produces on us an “overflow of powerful feelings” and the “recollection in tranquility” of these feelings produces what he called poetry. The poet uses his senses in order to put the emotion on the paper, in front of the eyes of the reader. When Wordsworth wrote his ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’ he referred to nature but poetry is not just nature, poetry can be everything, beauty can be found everywhere, since beauty, as Keats states, should be the real object of poetry. Although this is not enough in order to write a poem: Keats worked out a difficult but illuminating concept called ‘Negative Capability’. He says that Negative Capability is the faculty that a man has to stay in the mystery, in the unknown without feeling the need to give it a rational explanation. In other words we can say that it is also the ability to identify yourself with the object of your contemplation, forget, or better, negate (that’s why ‘Negative Capability’) yourself and try to become the object, the source of inspiration, of beauty, of truth and communicate it with poetry. In fact the aim of poetry is not to understand its meaning, giving it a rational explanation because, if it was so, poetry would be pointless. The aim of poetry is to get lost in its musicality, to escape from the ‘lethargy of costumes’ (to quote Coleridge) , open the eyes, look up and see things in a different way. This is Negative Capability, it is simply the capability to trust in our senses, the power to open ourselves to the other.
Now, Negative Capability is not something that involves just poetry but it can be useful even in our life. To summarize what I said before in two words, Negative Capability is the power that a human being has to mold himself with the other. I think that a field that needs this capability is teaching. If we try to think about it, teaching is not just getting into a room full of students and starting speaking and spitting things out of our mouth, otherwise we would all be able to become teacher. I do think that a good teacher is the one that can understand the student that he or she has in front of his/her eyes and shape the lesson on him/her. On the other side, the student has to understand what the teacher wants and try to fit in it. In this way we grasp that teaching is something that involves a relationship between two people that should help one another just by trying to think in a different way from what they are used to. Anyway teaching is just an example because our life is made up of relationships , we are not an island. In order to live better, to live in peace with the other we should try to be a little bit ‘humbler’, negate ourselves and understand that the world is full of people that think in many different ways.
Another example could be acting: when you act on a stage you do not act alone, it is a sort of teamwork; you always have to listen to your mate, get in contact with him, try not to think that you are better than him if you want the show to be a good show. But obviously it is the most difficult thing that an actor has to learn, since he is a human being too.
As we can see Negative Capability, a concept that was elaborated at the beginning of the XIX century, is a ‘multitasking’. Someone has even worked out an application that in my opinion has misunderstood its real aim and meaning. The man of the video (I’m not going to repeat what he talks about, since we all watched it) quotes Keats’ Negative Capability in order to explain his method of making money: he simply wants to study who he has in front of him, identify himself with him in order to sell him something. He refers to the study of NLP. It is terrible, I think, to confuse Negative Capability with such a ‘scientific’ thing. Keats did not want to refer to a strategy to manipulate the other, because manipulation is something that you do for your own purpose. The real Negative Capability consist in breaking the narrow cages of our mind in order to live better with the other. So why should that businessman disturb Keats for a question of money?
The business man in the video talks about his strategy in order to deal his products. He talks about the facility of selling any kind of things identifying himself with people in front of him.
Through this explanation he underlines the concept of “negative capability” of John Keats. In fact Keats said that “when a man is able to remain in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”. Keats believed that men, especially poets, had the ability to accept that not everything can be resolved. Moreover he believed that the truth was not in science or philosophy, but in art. In his opinion not everything can be explained rationally and sometimes a lot of questions have not an answer.
In my life a lot of things have not an explanation, for example: why my life takes this way? There is not an answer. Of course my life is built on my own choices, but not always. Sometimes bad things happen, to which there are no answers. A lot of people blame God because they need an explanation for what happens. Not everyone is able to use “negative capability”, in fact in our century, where everything and everyone is controlled by technology, we are easily gullible and we are not able to think with our own head. For example the television shows us a perfect world, in which everything is perfect and obviously we think that what is on the TV is the truth and it has led us to discrimination and racism. Advertising makes us believe that their products are perfect and the best of all, but these are just the things that they want us to see, feel and believe.
Keats, with the concept of “Negative Capability”, would explain the moment, in which human beings are full of uncerainties and mysteries and they don’t use reason due to solve these two conflicting sides. Therefore, Keats refers to the moment of a man, in which there are conflicts inside him and, instead of resolving it through the employment of reason, he stands still between these two opposites side. Keats thinks that we need to overshoot our attitudes and believes, which causes our rationallity and instead of thinking, we should remain in our doubts.
We could find “negative capability” in our life, in lots of situations and we could adopt it in some siyuation. For example the in religion that we cannot solve doubts and mysteries throgh the use of rationallity; we can only accept them, experience this and and don’t feel the need to understand how and why they happen: we chave to sit between these ambiguities that afflict us. We need to use “negative capability”, in Keat’s opinion, in order to open our mind too, becuase, if we use rationality when we comunicate, we are chained in our beliefes and we don’t want to get rid of them; Comunication is the key world in order to be happy, but we need to contrast the unknow: therefore we need to open our mind with the people we are speaking to, when a dialogue; we are forged my mind-forged-menacles and we need to get rid of them, been open-minded people. When the poet can use his own “negative capability”, he could liberate themselves from the menacles or beliefes, by dialogues and sympthy.
Another use of “negative capability” is mentioned by the man in the video, who exploits some key words in order to reach his goal and sold the most possible: he is very good in underlining the positive aspects of his dialogue and product and with this capability, he manipulates people due to buy his product, in some cases deceiving them.
In my view Negative Capability is something we should all in some way apply in our every day lives. With the expression Negative Capability John Keats defined his idea for which men should put aside, for a moment, their problems, doubts and insecurities so that they can better understand other people and try to see things from their point of view. In addition Keats defines Negative Capability as the ability to restrain from trying to rationalize everything. I particularly agree with this part of his ideology, as I think we often become fixated on finding a meaning to everything that we cannot enjoy the moment. I think this idea of always having to do something as a mean to and end and not just because we feel like it is excessively reinforced in our society, so much so that the few people that go against social rules are immediately defined as reckless.
I think it would be great if people could try to put themselves in other people shoes but sincerely I do not see it occurring frequently and I do not think the situation will change in the near future; I find people are fixated in their idea and in their ways and they aim to achieve their own success disregarding other people’s needs completely.
An example of this way of living is clearly demonstrated by the business man in the video we watched. He blatantly uses Keats’ own ideology to gain money and success. He uses Keats’ words to do the exact opposite of what the poet wanted to teach with them. Although this is one of the numerous demonstrations of manipulation, selfishness and disregard for other people, I think Keats hit the mark with his concept of Negative Capability and I hope his words can one day be heard, for what they are really trying to express.
Negative Capability.
“Negative capability” is the ability to grasp mysteries, legends and doubts.
More exactly is the power to experience the unknown, without having the claim to know it at the cost of one’s life. Often we pretend to know the oneiric, even if we do not have the capability to do it. For this reason we run up against an obstacle, which occurs when we put on an air of resignation and testiness. According to Keats “negative capability” allows us to understand the real essence of things. This kind of method pertain to poets, mainly. The poet has the faculty to disclaim his personal certainties to embodied himself with an object, which is the source of his inspiration.
In a nutshell the poet rids himself of prejudices in order to seek sensations.
Personal experience.
Something similar happen to me when I play football. During the match, for example, I get irritated with the rival, or because I miss a goal, a pass.. I can not think no more.. I assume a behavior of resignation, testiness. I forget for a while that the essence of football is not the rage against opponents and the failed pass, but it is the pleasure I feel when I play to this game. By now is too late to thinking about, I played the game wrong.
The Seller
In my opinion the seller misuses the concept of “Negative Capability”. He studies this technique to understand the psychology of buyers in order to increase his sales. Unhappily he does not understand that it is wrong to apply this literary method to an economy one; because Keats’ “negative capability” was originally invented literature.
On the other hand it is appreciable that John Keats is used, nowadays, also in the economic’s field.
Emanuele Li Calzi
Prejudice is a baseless and usually negative attitude toward members of a group . The psychologist Gordon Allport, says that Prejudices and stereotypes are a normal part of human thinking. These are needed to understand the world around us, and put it in order. I think that these may be useful at first, but then detach from them is necessary to have a real view of what surrounds us. Negative Capability relates to this. John Keats tells us to give up our prejudices, and our own truth and to put ourselves in a superior position, to be able to put ourselves in other people’s shoes in order to understand other ideas and passione and at last to be able to grasp the truth and beauty. This activity, however, is reserved only to poets, who through the imagination, and the suspension of judgment can grasp what ordinary people cannot, and then pass them to us, through poetry. The poet does not feel the need to immediately know the truth, in a scientific way . Rather, it remains open to the truth, waiting for it to come.
I try to apply the negative capability to Religion. I consider myself agnostic , so I do not close my mind with the belief that God does not exist, but I rather leave it open and continue my research without excluding any possibility. I apply this kind of behaviour also to Love, where I don’t really wonder why I feel certain emotions, but I’m happy to try them, even if I do not know the reason of them. There are many things in the world that would need the negative capability, starting by wars , which could be avoided if there were no prejudices; and then to continue in a smaller scope, the school , where if there was a negative capability between students and teachers the relationship would be much more peaceful and positive.
As regard the video, the man who speaks perhaps does not make a correct use of the concept of negative capability. He says that by putting ourselves in the shoes of another person, you can understand the feelings and emotions that then can be converted into currency. And this currency can take you very far. I think that Keats did not mean exactly this, and every time this concept is misunderstood, just like in this case, he turns over in his grave. He did not see things in the logic of profit, but in that of Art.
The man uses negative capability in a wrong way. He says that we can use it to see people’s weakness and to manipulate them. Negative capability is linked to the opportunity to make money, it is a discipline that a businessman learn to succeed.
But according to Keats we can use negative capability to be closer to people, to understand their feelings, emotions and ideas. Negative capability is the key that helps us to know different cultures , religions and points of view. It is a sort of mind state, in where there is not prejudices and judges. Every person has got negative capability and it is also an involuntary action. For example when we see a homelessness, we do not have negative comments but we stop thinking for seconds. Negative capability helps us to imagine things about his life, feelings and we see the world through his eyes.
We go beyond ourselves for a very short time but it is very important because thanks to it, we can have other perspective, without judges.
In my opinion negative capability is not a quality that belongs to the poets only, but it belongs to every men.
Negative capability is a sort of a relationship with our soul, that gets in touch with us. This could happen in every moment, in every circumstance and our soul brings us to a visionary world.
In this world there is not discrimination we are free, we see the things that linked people and Country.
Negative capability should be a discipline with whom human beings could understand diversity and have a world without wars and discrimination.
Giada Blasut
According to Keats the “Negative Capability” is the capability the poet has to deny his certainties and personality. The poet is able to seek sensation, which is the basis of knowledge.
For me it is the ability to contemplate the world without the desire to try and reconcile contradictory aspects because we have to accept the fact that not everything can be resolved. The man wants to know everything, but it is not possible. We have to accept the fate and the doubts.
In our society this capability is almost disappeared because we absolutely want to find the reason of things. In my opinion the solution is to be able to be amaze, watching the world like through the eyes of a child. In this way we could appreciate the world in all its aspects.
The man in the video is using the negative capability like a technique to persuade people he wants to capture human emotion and their values.
The theory of the “Negative capability” by john keats affirms that the poet does not look for scientific or philosophical truth, he just experiences the marvels which surround him through senses, he is completely phisycal in a physical world. The poet is compelled to immagine more than he can know or understand. He himself in the letter of December 1817 to his brothers describes this quality “which Shakespeare possesed so enormously, I mean negative capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”. In order to feel or have the sense of facts, you have to empathize with them, be absorbed in what you are experiencing forgetting yourself for a while. In the film we saw the poet tells Fanny Brawne “the point to dive in a lake is not immediately to swimm to the shore, but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water”. In my opinion, negative capability can be associated to a way of life which does not look for solutions to problems but it just wallows in the mire without getting out of it. This approach to life can be usefull for an artist because he can have the role to make us understand all the aspects, good or bad of reality. On the countrary, ordinary people has to face the problems of everyday life and solve them, otherwise we will be swept away by facts.
As far as the video of the man that uses “Negative capability” concernes, I think he manipulates his audience, simulating to empathize with them. This technique sounds like something illegal, such as “circonvenzione di incapace” or that you want to sell something that is not what you are affirming. He stimulates the deepest feelings, needs and aspirations in order to make his profit.
A man once said: ” Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try…”. This man was John Lennon and those words are taken from the one song that is probably Lennon’s most famous song, that is “Imagine”. However author and title are not important. Those words are important because of their meaning. I will now try to explain Keats’ concept of “negative capability” starting from them. Lennon’s first word in the song is “imagine”. He’s encouraging us to use that great ability all human beings are endowed with, that is imagination. This kind of imagination is Coleridge’s secondary imagination, that is the ability to create something new, to create a new world, our own world. Since it is our OWN world, we are free to put anything we want inside it. So we can create a world where “there’s no heaven”. We, as human beings and as Christians especially, we are accustomed to believe that there’s heaven. When we look up to the sky we see heaven and hell. This equation Sky=hell\heaven is the result of what we were taught by our parents. It is a belief. Something we cannot be totally sure about but that we accept as something that was encapsulated in our mind since we were kids. Our mind usually tends to be rigid in the sense that we tend to defend our beliefs. Because they are ours. Because we have grown up with them. Because they are a part of us. You cannot easily get rid of something that is yours. This is why we don’t want to get rid of our beliefs, of our certainties. Even because “you know what you leave but you don’t know what you will find”, in the sense that you know that you’re going to eliminate your old thoughts but you don’t know what you’re going to replace them with. Human beings have always been afraid of the unknown. Though the Romantic concept of the sublime teaches us that we are kind of fascinated by what we fear. Keats says with his concept of “negative capability”, that we have to be courageous enough to experience ”uncertainties, mysteries, doubts”. We have to take a step further as regards facts and things connected with our material experience and float into the unknown because there the truth lies. Just if we move away from our old ideas and take a step into other ideas, the others’ ideas for example, we can understand what’s true, we can reach a form of objectivity. To make what I’ve just said a little bit more concrete, I want to share my own experience as regards as the application of Keats’ “negative capability” is concerned. I have a cousin and she believes in dianetics. Dianetics is a life philosophy. A life philosophy that’s slightly different from mine and my family’s. Well, when I was a child I used to think that it was wrong. Because my great grandparents said it. Because my aunts and uncles said it. Because I was weak as Keats’s “common man” and had not the strength to create my own vision on the subject. As I grew up I’ve started to change my attitude. During the time I spent with my cousin I tried to imagine what dianetics meant to her and which could be the benefits that came from living your life with that principles supported by her life philosophy. I cannot say that I agree with them all but some of them have turned to be good even for me. Furthermore this has allowed me to penetrate into my cousin’s soul and in so doing I’ve understood her better.
This is the positive way to use “negative capability”, that is being sympathetic with other people but of course there’s a negative way as well. Business people use this power to “become someone else” and understand someone else’s needs just to direct the market and therefore to make money. That’s selfish and it is not what Keats was thinking of when he formulated his concept of “negative capability”.
“La Belle Dame sans Merci” Frank Dicksee.
In the painting of Frank Dicksee,my favorite one, I find the “beuty” and the actual representation of Keats’s message. In the painting,the lady is represented as a fairy,magic and superhuman creature with an apparent innocence,angelic and bright face,but with her eyes wild,completely fails to enthrall and control the knight. In order to Keats, the woman is both angelical and diabolical. Although it has a pure appearance that deceives,it is a misterious figure,that with her wild eyes;and faery songs,it’s able to make every man in thrall. It’s a figure so misterious and magic,that the man ( knight) who meets her seems to dream. Infact this is the main aspect that I would analyze in the painting: the knight it’s unable to speak,he can’t do anything,he just stare at her,shocked,surprised,amazed. Amazed from such purity,beuty,fairy innocence. He is completely surrendered. It’s she who controls the horse and guide the knight. She has all the control on him,who is bewitched and resigned. I really like the background of the painting ( wild,full immersion in nature) because it gives the greatest and the necessary dimension of the mystery and magic,where it all happens.
The painting that I like most is that of Frank Cadogan Cowper because is of all, in my opinion, one that faithfully represents the cruel and fatal charm of the Belle Dame sans merci. The knight lying at her feet and hardly known, the woman is on top and is instead dressed in red so as to be noticed and admired for her beauty. The painting is fascinating and at the same time very dramatic.
In my opinion, clearly expresses the power that woman has to man: for how much you resist she capture you forever.
Comment of the video about “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
I prefer the third video of the three suggested. In fact it is the most similar to a true lesson in class, and this teacher explained the topic in a very simple way. He used lots of synonymous to get clearer the exposition, but above all he used to compare the described situation, with the present reality. The latter aspect has helped me also to understand not just the meaning of the discussion but also the Keats’poem. Besides the support of the text, that he read during the lesson, it’s an aid to match it with the explanation.
I ran just into a problem, because of his pronunciation: it wasn’t always clear and some words was understandable, especially when he didn’t look into the camera.