John Keats — Negative Capability
John Keats (1795–1821) belonged to the second generation of Romantic poets which included Shelley and Lord Byron. Keats’s idea of “Negative Capability” can be contrasted with Wordsworth’s philosophy. Stemming from the first generation of Romantic poets, Wordsworth believed in the spiritual and moral influence of nature and recommended the idea of “return to nature”. This moral influence that nature exerts on man is one of the themes of ‘Tintern Abbey’ (published in 1798). In the second stanza we see that Nature has influenced Wordsworth into performing “little, nameless, unremembered, acts” of kindness and love. Nature is romanticized as having a humbling influence, being soothing to the soul, and is seen as a place of refuge from the harsh noise of city life. However, Keats was caught up in the “weariness , the fever, and the fret” of life as he was trying to discover an eternal beauty in which nothing perishes. Gradually Keats matures over time and in his final ode called ‘Ode to Autumn’ he achieves the much talked about “Negative Capability”.
To have a better understanding, we must take into consideration Keats’s personal life. Though his life was short-lived, he suffered multiple tragedies: He lost his father in 1804 due to a horse-riding accident; he lost his mother to tuberculosis in 1810; and he lost his younger brother Tom to tuberculosis in 1818. To make matters worse, it was not long before Keats himself contracted the deadly tuberculosis. Early losses and ill-health led him into depression thus straining his relationship with Fanny Brawne whom he was madly in love with. Perhaps, such suffering also gave him the gift of expressing himself sensuously and this is visible in his famous odes composed in 1819.
The first time we get a glimpse of Keats’s idea of “Negative Capability” is in his letter to his brothers George and Tom dated around December 1818. In this letter, Keats describes “Negative Capability” as the ability to exist in all the “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts” without being anxious about fact and reason. What he means to say is that one should abandon the quest for truth because “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”. What matters most is the denial of the self/ego which is always seeking for concrete and singular answers to the mysteries encasing life. If we compare ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ (published in July 1819) with ‘Ode to Autumn’ (published in 1820) we notice a mature transformation in Keats’s character. To begin with, Keats was inspired to write ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ by a nightingale that nested in his garden in early spring. In this ode Keats is in search of beauty, an everlasting beauty in a world of ugliness, transience, death, and loss. It is the Nightingale’s song which symbolizes this undying beauty that the poet is in quest of —
“Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!”
However, in the final stanza (VIII) of the ode, the narrator wakes up feeling confused, lost and cheated by this “vision, or a waking dream?” At this stage, his imagination can no longer give him solace because it gives way to harsh reality. In truth, the imagination/fancy cannot go on prolonging a beautiful moment forever and ever in the recesses of the mind. The narrator no longer has the nightingale’s song to soothe his distressed soul, hence the uncertain question — “Do I wake or sleep?” In his final ode, ‘Ode to Autumn’, Keats shows signs of maturity and growth as he starts to see beauty amidst the decay and sufferings. In this ode, the narrator addresses Autumn saying “thou hast thy music too” —
“Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”
What we notice in his final redemptive ode is a humble acceptance of life for what it is along with all its forms of beauty and decay. Autumn is symbolically a season of decay, but the narrator/poet becomes sensitized to the beauteous music of the season. He is no more in the anxious quest of finding answers to the uncertainties of existence, the mortality and the transience of life. Hence, there is a denial of the self/ego as he becomes the “chamelion poet” and begins to see things for what they are from an objective perspective, very much like William Shakespeare whom he calls the “Man of Achievement”. According to Keats, such a man is one for whom “the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.” Therefore, Wordsworth believed that Nature was characterised by a spiritual and moral force that guides man in his pursuit of life whereas Keats’s sole concern was the “Beauty” of it that is also to be found in the midst of decay — the paradox.
Keats understands that “Beauty” is to be found not just in spring time as is seen in the song of the Nightingale but also in autumn (decay) as is seen in the bending of the “moss’d cottage-trees” with apples, the ripening of the hazelnuts, and the kaleidoscope of music that the various animals, insects and birds produce during the season. In spite of his sufferings and depression, Keats achieved “Negative Capability” and grew as a poet by developing an insight which helped his senses to perceive “Beauty” which is the only truth that is out there in this world of anxiety, misery, suffering, and death. It is a harrowing world indeed with a lot of questions to be answered and in spite of all the negative forces around, “Beauty” can still be found if only we open up our senses to the experiences that Nature has to offer. It is true that life is impermanent and fleeting but we must humbly accept this and we must not forget that —
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Unfortunately, in 1821 at the delicate age of 25 Keats’s life was cut short by tuberculosis, and the world lost one of the best poets it ever produced.
