Negative Capability by John Keats Lecture Notes By Anil S Awad

Negative Capability by John Keats

Lecture Notes By

Anil S Awad

English NET/SET Consultant

9922113364 (Also WhatsApp)

9423403368 (BSNL)

anilawad123@gmail.com

Some Stories are here…

Shakespeare’s story –

Let’s begin with Macbeth. The story runs in the following way – Macbeth, wins the battle and returning to home. He meets three witches – their prophesies – Macbeth will be the king soon, he will not be defeated until the Birnam woods would walk – he will not be killed by a man born by natural way to a woman…the story runs…and runs and runs…and we have a great tragedy…by Shakespeare.

In this story, we accepted some facts (although they are fictitious) - that – there are witches, they can prophesize, their prophesies can be true, they can tell only half-truth, Macdeuff who kills Macbeth at the end of the play was ‘untimely ripped from his mother’s womb’ – we just believe it. We have no proof to prove that all these things as they are right. But we don’t want to lose the charm of the play by doubting every concept presented onto the stage. We just believe to enjoy it…and thanks to Shakespeare and his skills of presentation that makes us believe in the action.

He used this skill in his every play – we believe what he presents in ‘Hamlet’, ‘Othello’, ‘King Lear’ and many more other plays.

Now note down the famous quote from the play:

I dare do all that may become a man;

Who dares do more is none

The same happens with our sympathy and empathy for Hamlet and King Lear:

We are totally in empathetic position when we see Hamlet saying:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,

Or in ‘King Lear’

As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods.

They kill us for their sport.

Wordsworth Story –

Now it is the story of your favourite writer – William Wordsworth. Check the lines from his ‘Daffodils’

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Now concluding lines from ‘The Solitary Reaper’

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

NOW LET’S NOTE THE USE OF PRONOUNCE – ‘I’ AND ‘WE’ – IN THE ABOVE QUOTES.

JUST TRY TO ANSWER – WHICH IS THE DOMINANT FACTOR? THE CHARACTER OR THE WRITER….IN WHICH QUOTES?

OK. Move forward. To my and your story –

My/Your Story –

I am a great fan of Star War Movie Series…watching it since my school days…there is a war in the ‘Far Far Away in a Galaxy…’ (I never asked which galaxy). Flying saucers that can fly multiple times of light, laser machineguns, typical aliens, Jedies with swords – I believe everything. I never want to ask a questions like - Is it true? Why? I didn’t want to lose the pleasure of believing in such unbelievable things. What about yours? You (and me too) watch Harry Potter Movie series – have you ever asked the questions like – how can the Magic Wang work? How can there be a platform No. 9 ¼?

I just believe. You too.

Now it is the story of John Keats –

Since Romantic Age was mostly the age of poetry, very few plays worthy to play on the stage were produced. Shakespearean plays were favorite of the contemporary audience. Naturally, a young person like John Keats with the artistic taste was much attracted to such performances. Of course, Keats was also a poet with thorough poetic mind and possessed great ability to analyze many literary works. Keats was a great fan of Shakespeare. He was great fan of Edmund Kean, the contemporary great stage actor (say – Contemporary Amitabh or Rajanikant). Kean’s acting of famous characters like Shylock, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Richard III not only appealed to Keats but also shed light on certain basic ideas related to arts. Even when Hazlitt attacked Kean as "indescribable gusto", Keats defended his acting. Charles Armitage Brown was a famous contemporary poet and he gave a gift of Silver Ticket to Keats for the theatre, so he could go and watch any performances in Drury Lane anytime. He had Byron and Shelley too, as his mentors. They already contributed to his artistic development. So was Wordsworth to him, whose poems were the regular diet of his artistic hunger. Keats’ experience came from his wide readings of art and literature plus his literary associations with men of letters like Hazlitt, Brown, Dilke Leigh Hunt, Benjamin Robert Haydon, Benjamin Bailey and others.

There were many literary upheavals in the contemporary age and of course, it affected the sensitive mind of a kid like Keats. (Really he was a kid for the contemporary age and died very young at the age of 24). He was willing to say something, but was afraid.(Of course, it proved to be true after the publication of Endymion when he was severely attacked by contemporary literary giants, which resulted in fatal stroke of tuberculosis and he died in depression – A thing of beauty was not a joy forever to Keats.)

It is clearly seen in his 1819 poem ‘To the Nightingale’

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

It already lessened his confidence. But thanks to God, he had two great brothers, George and Thomas who could understand his feelings and usually he used to send them personal and private letters…. Date - 21 December 1817…a sudden thought was in his mind and to avoid all the controversies and attacks from contemporary critics, he wrote the letter stating the concept of ‘Negative Capability’ which is still controversial….see the extract…

I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, upon various subjects; several things dove-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—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

The story of John Keats ends here.

NOW RE-READ THE STORIES – THE STORY OF SHAKESPEARE, STORY OF WORDSWORTH, MY/YOUR STORY AND KEATS’ STORY…..GREAT…WE ALL ARE SHARING IN THE ROW OF THESE GREAT WRITERS…HA HA HA…

NOW LET’S MOVE TO THE CONCEPT OF NEGATIVE CAPABILITY….Let me clear some points –

Ø First, there is nothing ‘Negative’ in Negative Capability. It is a very very positive term.

Ø Secondly, it is not oxymoron, a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true). It is a coinage - a new term.

Ø Thirdly, it is a personal response from great literary mind, that is, John Keats, to the Elizabethan playwright and father of drama – Shakespeare.

LET’S SEE THE TERM:

I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, upon various subjects – Dike was contemporary critic, and Keats had in his mind that definitely he would like to analyze his term ‘Negative Capability’. As already mentioned, he avoided to publically presenting his views and instead he wrote his brother. He chose a safe passage.

‘Dispute but a disquisition(a long or elaborate essay or discussion on a particular subject.)’ – It seems he is avoiding it.

‘At once it struck me’ – It was a sudden thought in the poetic mind of John Keats. As a young scholar, it was natural; such thoughts always come in mind…without any pre-meditation.

Man of Achievement, especially in Literature – After having too much reading of many writers – back from history and contemporary, he came to the conclusion that Shakespeare was the Man of Achievement. Why? Why? Why?

‘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’ – It means simply that while reading or watching the performances of Shakespeare readers or the audience are objective or emotionally detached.

Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. – Coleridge is aware of such detachments (As we are going to see in Willing Suspension of Disbelief 1817) but enough shrew to hide it or missed it.

This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration. – Even though knowing the truth, they keep writing volumes.

Now let me explain the term:

While reading Shakespeare’s plays, what do you notice? When the story of Macbeth is going on….it is just a story and we see Macbeth and his fall, not of Shakespeare. ‘To be or not to be’ – the procrastination is of Hamlet, not to Shakespeare. King Lear goes mad…not Shakespeare. It is Julius Caesar who utters - Et tu, Brute?...where is the Shakespeare my friends? It’s the characters who are talking…Shakespeare kept himself detached from his characters and actions….it’s Negative Capability. Rejecting the idea of being in the literary work of art. When some writer or dramatist creates the plot, character and action…he is not in the focus…neither he wants to be….he rejects his own existence and just make a great creation in the form of his own characters….we moves to negative capability….

‘When a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’ – the uncertainties are there, why? We don’t know what is going to be shown on stage. Mysteries are there. Why? We don’t know the denouement. Many doubts…but the plot answers the questions…not Shakespeare. And we are not getting irritable- why these things are happening… we consider them inevitable….We are neither trying to find out the fact or any reason, just believe…Just like ‘ Far far away in a galaxy’… No Shakespeare is found there…He already disappeared. It is his characters who are asserting everything. What a great writer! Don’t want even to show himself in his own literary work of art…but foregrounded his characters, plots and action. It is Negative Capability…you can show that you are the puppet player, but still you reject it and shows that the puppet play is the real one and the audience discuss more about the puppets than the author. Negative – you rejected your own identity to be shown on the stage (or writing) and capability – of course it is difficult for a writer to keep detached and still you detached…we just see your characters. Ha…! O Great Shakespeare…you are really a capable writer. We are able to see the characters…not the writer in the characters…Ha ha ha…

The mistakes are with the writers like Wordsworth and Milton – ‘Egoistic Sublime’ – Read any piece of these writers and you will find them in every line…in ‘Daffodils’ – it’s not the flower…Wordsworth speaking….

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Now concluding lines from ‘The Solitary Reaper’

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

Yaar Wordsworth, are we here to read you or to know the plight of ‘The Solitary Reaper’. And Mr. Milton…

Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste

Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man…

I can easily perceive your Puritan mind in these beginning lines of ‘Paradise Lost’. You are not totally detached…!

“Wordsworth and you have egos to show yourself in your literary work…you tried to sublime them. You are charged with ‘egotistic sublime’…and I condemn you - inferior to Shakespeare. No Negative Capability is there…you can’t deny your own appearance in the work of literary art…you just sublimed yourself with showing your own emotion. You are not capable of understanding the emotions of your own characters…you just have to do with your own-ness. I condemn you” – Perhaps this is what John Keats wanted to convey.

Negative Capability, Willing Suspension of Disbelief and Eliot’s Theory of Impersonality…

Negative Capability asserts the rejection of the involvement of the writer in any work of art. Willing Suspension of Disbelief advices the audience to believe willingly – what is happening on the stage is untrue but willingly believe it that it is true. And Eliot’s Theory of Impersonality tells that a poet’s mind should be catalytic members….it creates actions and reactions but still keeps itself detached from being affected.

So…What is Negative Capability ?

• Objective and emotional detachment.

• The work possessing capabilities have beauties and depths that make conventional consideration of truth and morality irrelevant.

• Poets should come to the facts that some certainties were best left open to imagination and that the elements of doubts and ambiguity added to Romanticism and especially to a concept.

• For some things, those correct answers might not be available. In fact, they might not exist at all…so no rationalization of literary work of art please.

• It is possibility that there might be contradictory ideas in your mind at the same time, without deciding that one of them is true and the other false – avoid it. It will ruin the pleasure of the literary work.

• Negative Capability is just like space in one’s mind which is free from life’s troubles.

• Capacity has seeds in theatrical performances.

• Through the writings of Milton and Wordsworth, ‘egotistic sublime’ i.e. sublimity of their own spiritual or actual experiences are reflected. Shakespeare always kept detached himself from any experience…it is his ‘Negative’ (rejection) ‘Capability’ (ability to show himself in his own work of art). It is just a kind of selfless contribution to the literary world.

Now come to the examples I have stated:

Ø In Shakespeare, it the characters, actions and plots speak more louder than the writer itself. It is the skill of the author who possesses Negative Capabilities.

Ø In Wordsworth and John Milton, we can easily perceive the existence of the writers.

Ø John Keats himself followed his own theory – you can easily perceive in his own poems – ‘Bright Star’, ‘To Autumn’, ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, ‘Ode to Nightingale’, ‘The Eve of St. Agnes’, ‘Hyperion’ etc. – we can perceive ‘Negative Capability’ – the characters, actions, plots and atmosphere are more dominant than Keats himself. For that he used Hellenic references.

Ø The concept ‘Negative Capability’ is still controversial after 100 years. But the noble soul of Keats just wanted to convey his thoughts to the readers and audience. Although he failed in his own age…he is still influencing his readers.

Thanks.

(Since these are lecture notes, inconvenience related to grammar, sytax, structure etc. are regretted)

Anil Awad

English NET and SET Consultant,

9922113364 (Also WhatsApp)

9423403368 (BSNL)

anilawad123@gmail.com

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