Negative Capability

 

Negative Capability.

 

 

In a letter, John Keats wrote to his brothers George and Thomas,--

 ‘’Several things doved-tailed in my mind, and at

Once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’’  

  The poet shows his admiration for Shakespeare to explain about the term ‘’ Negative capability’’. According to the poet Shakespeare is an impersonal dramatist who is able to create different characters without infusing his personality.

                  Negative capability is a concept promoted by the poet John Keats who was of the opinion that literary achievers like poets, dramatists, should be able to come to terms with the fact that some matters might have to be left unsolved and uncertain. It is all about intellectual confusion. The term has been used by the poets , dramatists, and philosophers to express their thoughts, imagination and feelings by the representation of an imagined character. In this matter the writers will not be involved directly. Keats was of the opinion that some certainties were best left open for imagination and that is the element of doubt and ambiguity that added romanticism.