Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Keats , John (1907), The Complete Poetical Works of John Keats, Retrieved on 2013-04-05
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  • Folksonomies: literary criticism

    Memes

    05 APR 2013

     Negative Capability

    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 caugh...
      1  notes

    According to wikipedia: "...the capacity of human beings to transcend and revise their contexts." Here is the first use of the term by John Keats, where it sounds more like the ability to remain calm and rational in the face of uncertainty and not jump to conclusions without evidence.

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