JOHN KEATS: What is Negative Capability? Explanation, Analysis & Example from John Keats’ poem Lamia

What is “Negative Capability”? Explanation, analysis, & summary of John Keats’ wonderful phrase “Negative Capability”, including an example from Keats’ poem ‘Lamia’ (1820), which describes a rainbow.
John Keats considered negative capability to be essential to his poetic style, & fundamental to his conception of knowledge and engagement with the world. But what does “negative capability” mean? And how does it materialise in Keats’s poetry? In the lecture, I explain what John Keats meant by the term “Negative Capability” (which appeared in a letter from John Keats to his brothers, George and Tom Keats, c.27 December 1817), and analyse it in relation to Keats’ poem Lamia, in which Keats describes the mysterious beauty of rainbows.
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[@DrOctaviaCox]

If you like the work I do, then you can support it here: www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=D8LSKGJP2NL4N Thank you very much indeed for watching my channel.

[@prakashmukhiya3537]

Love from india

[@jrpipik]

“To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven.” - Chuang Tzu

[@DrOctaviaCox]

A beautiful example - thank you. The "lathe of heaven" is itself rather a puzzling image...

[@jrpipik]

@@DrOctaviaCox I take "the lathe of heaven" to mean the tool which the gods use to shape us. Lacking the humility to accept the limits of our human understanding is like a warp in our wood that causes the lathe to seize up and the fabric of our being -- our hearts and minds -- to break.

[@judisutherland8051]

What Keats said was very interesting to poets. Sometimes things pop into our heads especially in ‘free writing’ that would not make absolute sense in a novel or an essay, but seem just right, and beautiful, on some kind of subconscious level. We need to resist the temptation to ‘correct’ or ‘make sense of’ this language, and just let it stand. Often this is what our readers like best, poetry that seems to come from a deeper part of the brain. I’m reminded of Billy Collins poem ‘Introduction to Poetry’ where he tries to get other responses to a poem from his students than ‘beating it with a hose / to find out what it really means’.

[@DrOctaviaCox]

Do leave any of your own examples of poetic negative capability.

[@BestBrightside]

This has been addressed beautifully in the film Bright Star (though it's, to my limited knowledge, not an actual quote of Keats'): "A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is experienced beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery."

[@grahamrobson9292]

Wonderful thank you ❤

[@martinvickers14]

I love Keats, as a man, a very young man, as a poet and as one who saw kindness as a quality beyond both politics and religion. I told a professor of Literature at NYU that I didn't think Keats believed in God, and was agreed with. But he did believe. He believed in compassion for everything that lives and dies. The birth. life, and death of unseen flowers.....Endymion. .-

[@bonniehagan9644]

PS, Doctor Cox, I love your precision of language.

[@DrOctaviaCox]

Thank you, Bonnie.

[@chandrasekharvinnakota4978]

Very impressive. Highly irresistible to stop. Almost wordless. Finally thank you so much.

[@jolieonetoo]

"Wise passiveness", the concept described by Wordsworth, sounds like meditation by another name.

[@normanleach5427]

Having listened to this woman this morning...it is now obvious why Athena represents the nature of wisdom.

[@lisatitirangi]

Thank you for this fascinating video. Your previous talk on Keats took me back to his poetry and to a wonderful biography. I spent such a wholesome, happy and heart-breaking few weeks immersed in his world - very grateful to you.

[@susanrobertson984]

I had never heard the expression to know the woof of someone and I thought I knew it’s meaning but I was slightly wrong. It is not the texture per se but the threads that run crossways on the loom. Also known as the weft. This to know the woof of someone is to know how they are made and to know their structure and inner workings and their strength. You on what they are built. It is a very laden expression, carrying so much meaning.

[@bonniehagan9644]

I love language borrowed from another discipline (like weaving) and given new life in a New Usage.

[@bonniehagan9644]

Interesting ideas! So, it strikes me that Keats views an assertive, scientific curiosity as an act that is violent or damaging to a sense of awe. As if a coroner had examined the corpse of the Lady of Shallott and determined it was no curse at all, but an aneurysm that had terminated her mortality. No room for the sublime in the meticulous pursuit of knowledge in minutiae.

[@DrOctaviaCox]

Ha! - I love your analogy. Yes, the "cold philosophy" of the autopsy has no room for the "charm" or poetry of the curse.

[@IamAbhi1]

Thank you for this one..

[@charlottesimms4148]

This was amazing! thank you so much. The way you explain things is so concise and understandable!

[@mawadhnajm5325]

Thank you so much, I needed this.

[@rosegarden7256]

To experience the true magic of the rainbow one must simply and innocently embrace the ethereal beauty without getting bogged down in the cold data and scientific facts; though it could be suggested that upon deeper analyses the scientific data can often be seen to reveal a sublime beauty all their own.

[@DrOctaviaCox]

Sublimity is in the eye of the beholder!

[@bonniehagan9644]

@@DrOctaviaCox oh just for fun, could we say, "Sublimity is in the eye of the seer"? 😉

[@stephenkoritta9656]

Wow! Beautiful! How I've written and conducted myself in the face of the mystery and uncertainty of this pandemic, I fail his metric by miles. It has turned me into an irritable reaching bee. I'm glad to have received this instruction. Might put me back on the path.

[@ma.lailani8050]

This is wonderful. Thank you

[@519djw6]

Dear Dr. Cox, Keats is, after Shakespeare, my favorite poet in the English Language. I majored in English Literature in the States, and have always had an *intuitive* understanding of Keats's concept of Negative Capability--although I have never been able to verbalize it so well as you have here. In fact, I have to confess that I believed Keats was "praising" Coleridge for possessing Negative Capability--rather than criticizing him for the lack of it! I know that later in that letter he praised Shakespeare for having this "Capability" more than any other writer in the language. Thank you for this lecture, and you have a new subscriber!

[@forthrightgambitia1032]

A more quotidian use of 'negative' in the sense Keats means here would be when we talk of 'negative numbers'. Indeed this is more than a mere association as is known that during Keat's apprenticeship he was familiarised with the then fashionable concepts of Galvanism and the new discoveries about batteries and electricity. In this era the the concept of 'positive' and 'negative' poles were important and some have hypothesised this influenced his usage of the term negative here.

[@littlsuprstr]

This is the best explanation of negative capability I've seen.

[@liamodalaigh3201]

You are the most interesting presenter of literature (Professor) I have encountered. Intriguing. Pretty too! if i might be bold.

[@charlychips]

Love your videos and insights. Thank you so much. Adore Keats.

[@jornbaa5151]

Rainbows burst into colorful shards like glass tumblers. Light breaks in it, spread across the sky water beads. Reflections can be found in verses that have not yet been said.

[@dleigh112]

Keats, Wordsworth and Lamb. That's a dinner party I would have loved to be at.

[@DrOctaviaCox]

Indeed. In his autobiography, Haydon recalled: "Wordsworth was in fine cue, and we had a glorious set-to-on Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Virgil. Lamb got exceedingly merry [or as Keats says in a letter to his brothers, "tipsey"], and exquisitely witty; and his fun in the midst of Wordsworth's solemn intonations of oratory was like the sarcasm and wit of the fool in the intervals of Lear's passion." It must have been quite an occasion!

[@johnbradshaw5097]

An interesting and enjoyable video; thank you.

[@maostrap7850]

Thanks!

[@shivduttchaturvedi4984]

Vry clear and effective

[@davidsmith1254]

You are an amazing teacher! I can completely understand what you are saying.

[@rmarkread3750]

This reminds me of the difference between knowledge and faith. I would like to offer these lines from T.S. Eliot's "East Coker": ". . . There is, it seems to us, At best, only a limited value In the knowledge derived from experience. The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies, For the pattern is new in every moment And every moment is a new and shocking Valuation of all we have been. . . ."

[@Natopera]

As a writer myself, I have always interpreted Negative Capability as being an ability to take ego self out of the writing process. Of allowing oneself as an artist to trust the writerly self to know what is needed, especially when it is not obvious to the ego self. When I edit writers work I can tell when a writer is working from ego self and when they are writing while sitting in negative capability. It is a very Zen process.

[@DavidBrowningBYD]

What is the scientific metaphor in use nowadays about ruining a moment by trying to measure it? Schrodinger's cat? Something like that. Regardless, this is one of the most brilliant things I have heard in recent memory. I need to hear more.

[@singingway]

The Heisenberg principle. By observing the trails of subatomic particles, you change their behavior.

[@davidsmith1254]

It's interesting that the mystery is afforded by an embracing of warmth and exploration of nature, their relationship too rather than genre. There's a braveness there.

[@paulzenev4346]

Hi Dr Cox. I enjoy your programs very much!! Woody Allen uses the phrase - NC. I think in his movie Manhattan 1977. Is there anything unintellectual about it?? Is he saying that the poet needs to have this attribute; maybe not others?? Moreover, I have read four of Keats odes: To Autumn, odes to GU, NG, ode to melancholy. Right now I can't give an example of NC. But I found To Autumn, which I like very much, very ordered and "scientific"!! While the others were very disordered - especially Ode to Melancholy, which I also liked. I just wanted to give you my first impressions of Keats. BTW, at 6:00 and 6:52 it made me think of - Frankenstein.

[@centuryflower]

I would have defended Coleridge. This must be a world view difference. Is mystery itself is useful to your soul? I find mystery in itself to be useless and meaningless to me. Mystery only represents a subject to explore. In exploring I find excitement and appreciation in the beauty and meaning of the complexity of the concepts that build nature. Understanding how a rainbow works enhances its beauty for me and enhances my wonder.

[@noheroespublishing1907]

Reminds me a little of Zizek's idea of "coffee without cream" defines the lack of a thing, not the content of the thing, as a coffee without cream could have any number of other ingredients in it, but the thing that defines it to the orderer is it's lack of cream.

[@timstevens8851]

Thank you for another enlightening program. I heard American writer Ed Abbey reference Keats' affirmation many years ago, but never knew where the line came from until today. "It seems to me that Keats was wrong when he asked rhetorically, 'Do not all charms fly at the mere touch of cold philosophy,' that word “philosophy” standing for in his day what we now call physical science. But Keats was wrong I say, because there is more charm in one mere fact, confirmed by tests and observation, linked to other facts through coherent theory into a rational system, than in a whole brain-full of fancy and fantasy. I see more poetry in a chunk of quartzite than in a make-believe wood nymph, more beauty in the relations of a verifiable intellectual construction than whole misty empires of obsolete mythology." That's the irascible and contrarian Abbey from his essay "Come On In", found in THE JOURNEY HOME. Given a choice between Coleridge and Keats, we know where Abbey would land. Thanks again for another fascinating program.

[@DrOctaviaCox]

Well, yes, I think we can certainly guess where he'd stand! Abbey is wrong, I think, to equate celebrating the mystery of things you don't fully understand and having "a whole brain-full of fancy and fantasy". The language here is so dismissive and pejorative: "brain-full" suggests incoherent excess, "fancy" is diminishing and suggests transience, and "fantasy" implies that something is unreal or untrue. Very irascible - "irritable reaching" we might even say!

[@timstevens8851]

Do you have any recommended readings that would accompany this program on Keats' "negative capability"? Wonderful program!

[@williamdaley4033]

There is beauty no doubt in algebra but it doesn’t excite the emotions …

[@singingway]

I think he would have changed his mind about science if he could have seen NASA photos of Earth, and of distant galaxies. To me, science increases awe and the feeling of mystery, it does not "conquer" it.

[@normanleach5427]

Emerson's "foolish consistency" is the consequence of an underdeveloped "negative capability". Having 'the presumptive answer' undermines the zen/stoic "readiness of the mind". What determines the heights of philosophic wisdom is the liberated mind. Reason alone falls short of an ontological rapport with the immediacy of life.

[@SquidDesign]

Thanks for the video … much food for thought. After flipping it over in my mind a few times and laying it as a template over the conversations, personalities, and artistic/intellectual pursuits of my own life, I feel that the curiosity to learn and know more doesn’t need to conflict with negative capability. It’s more about what your expectations are from those explanations. Do you want to satisfy your ego with some feeling of conclusiveness? Or do you understand and welcome that you are just opening up new questions and mysteries? Understanding the properties of light and energy have led us down the rabbit hole into the strangeness of quantum physics and many many more things to be in wonder of.

[@omidamani7882]

Thank you so much fro your brilliant discussion. I would like to know more the influence of the German philosophers on Keats. Actually, they talk about "romantic irony" or, simply the marriage of the opposites. How does Keats react to that?

[@Khatoon170]

Last and most important part of my research negative capability is phrase first used by romantic John Keats in year 1817 to explain capacity of greatest writers especially Shakespeare to pursue vision of artistic beauty even leads them into intellectual confusion uncertainty as opposed to preference he describes beings in certainties mysteries doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason in Letter he wrote to his brothers George and Tom in year 1817 inspired by Shakespeare work negative capabilities also testifies to importance of humility John Keats believed that world could never be fully understood let alone controlled in his view pride and arrogance must be avoided at all costs especially apt warning as world confront challenges thank you for your great efforts encourage us to read learn new information improve our English language as well stay safe blessed good luck to you your family friends

[@pokefan213]

ok I am sorry to be the one to bring this up but Octavia? Somebody's parents were spider-man fans and that is just an EPIC name.

[@signespencer6887]

sounds like Keats was anticipating the Impressionist painters

[@tangentreverent4821]

Was he referring to Burkhe's idea of the sublime as awe-full beauty?

[@delhatton]

Interesting and well done as always. Negative capability sounds like faith. Being comfortable with "mysteries". As in "mysterium fidei". Was he a closet Catholic? By the way, spectroscopy is awesome in its own way and has proven to be fantastically useful.

[@veronicajaeger3604]

I was thinking the same thing! Faith, I believe, allows us to appreciate beauty without a need to understand it completely. I take comfort in the hope that someday I will see and understand. "Now we see as in a mirror darkly, but then face to face." (Forgive any improper quoting of 1 Corinthians 13.)

[@HRJohn1944]

Thank you for a(nother) fascinating lecture. This sounds vaguely reminiscent of the "Two Cultures" spat between C P Snow and F R Leavis, in the early 1960s. Plus ca change. I'm sure that I'm not the first person to suggest this, but (with due reverence to my favourite poet) isn't this a false dichotomy? I know that the earth is an insignificant speck of cosmic dust, that spins on its axis at a speed of roughly 1,000mph (at the equator) and orbits its parent star travelling at about 67,000mph. Facts, perhaps, but pretty mind-blowing. Yet seeing the sun apparently "rise" and (about 12 hours later) "set" from the same spot in Kanyakumari is also pretty breath-taking, indeed unforgettable. As Polonius might have said, "neither an astrophysicist nor a poet be"

[@philipdavis9269]

One might choose to be both, quite profitably.

[@Leebearify]

It reminds me of yoga and meditation. Much to learn from nothingness.

[@DrOctaviaCox]

Keats celebrates the idea of nothingness (or no - _thing_ - ness, as we might think of it) in his description of the true poet, who should be unfixed from any particular thing: "As to the poetical Character itself ... it is not itself - it has no self - it is every thing and nothing - It has no character - it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated" (letter to Woodhouse, 27th October 1818).

[@kernowarty]

Here is my example of a poetic negative capability..." "... I just let it go so I had nothing to write

[@DrOctaviaCox]

Ha! - very good.

[@debatoshray1542]

Can i get your any mode of contact professor !

[@singingway]

"we know its woof" means that we can know the threads that run across the weaving, the cloth of reality, because we "make" reality through our perspective. We cannot know the "warp" of the 🌈 rainbow, which is its foundational reality, the strings of the loom of reality (those are the vertical strings you lay when you warp a loom) which were laid without our participation, the immutable truth of what a thing, or reality itself, is.

[@WWS322]

Why did I laugh tonight?

[@degalan2656]

I’m not saying it…

[@davidsmith1254]

I don't agree in this overarching idea. It is surely in his fracturing of ideas, the breaking down of truth and embracing the Beauty that the poet and reader find contentedness.

[@og_bur3k979]

Use me as a “the video is rather quiet” button