Negative Capability is a theory of the poet John Keats, expressed in his letter to George and Thomas Keats dated Sunday, 21 December 1817.
- I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several 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 man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason
Keats expressed this idea in several of his poems
- La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad (1819)
- Ode to a Nightingale (1819)
- The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream (1819)
Also see