In today’s post I will talk about Negative Capability. In particular, I’ll try to answer the question, What is negative capability? There’s a reason I’ve used bold font. There’s also a reason I said that I’ll try to answer the question.
Honestly, few things in a literary context have troubled me more than negative capability. Can I give you a definition? Sure. That’s very easy. Let’s take the one offered by John Keats himself, who coined the term.
[S]everal things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & 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 & 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.
The Letters of John Keats, ed. H E Rollins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958.
Giving a simple definition is relatively easy. Understanding the repercussions, is an entirely different story. Let’s try to unpack this.
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