Negative capability in John Keats poems

Negative capability in John Keats poems.

Negative capability is a phrase mostly used by the English poet John Keats means the capability of negating oneself. This can be possible when the character of the poet is not confirmed, when he has no ego, not any philosophy. The character of the poet should be flexible rather than confirmed.

As John Keats made up the phrase in the letter written to his brothers George and Thomas –

I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties,

Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

As we know that John Keats life was full of sufferings: his mother’s death, Tom’s death, his own ill-health, the faithlessness of Fanny, financial difficulties, his fierce criticism as a poet by the critics of his time, etc. But his poetry does not show all these sorrows. To find these effects we have to read his poems carefully and deeply.

 Keats’ odes are best example of this capability. In “Ode on a Grecian Urn” Keats avoids personal statements in his narration, rather choosing to focus on imagery instead of the impact of the imagery, and allows the urn to communicate its message to create a poem without self-interest, achieving negative capability. As the poet says in the second stanza:

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Here, the speaker comes closest to personal involvement as he empathizes with these characters, but even here the focus remains on the image and not on the image’s effect. This quality is related to the concept of beauty. The ability of discovering beauty in everything overpowers all other considerations. As the poet says-

‘Beauty is truth, truth Beauty’ – that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.

In another “Ode to Autumn” the poet merges himself with the spirit of Autumn. He becomes in turn a reaper who is sitting in the granary floor, or as a gleaner. The poet finds pleasure in light as well as in shade. He does not care for spring when he treats of autumn. As he says-

“Think not of them, thou hast thy music too.”

Keats attached great importance to imagination, as Coleridge attached importance to fancy. The negative capability of a true poet is not the result of any intellectual process; it is the result from imagination. Keats was always suspicious of reason; he believed in imagination alone. It was with the help of his rich imagination that he could make his poems spontaneous.