“The concept of Negative Capability is the ability to contemplate the world without the desire to try and reconcile contradictory aspects or fit it into closed and rational systems.”
John Keats: in a letter to his brothers, 12/21/1817
I am positive we would greatly benefit from well developed ‘negative capabilities.’ We are awash in a sea of ambiguity. Much in life is uncertain. Yet, our mentally ambitious race craves certitude, a solid belief we can count on without a doubt, an opinion commonly held without debate. We devise concepts and opinions, religions and philosophies to ease our journey through the earthquake prone, quicksand zone world we inhabit. But our certitudes often cause conflict.
Keats, the English Romantic poet, being a realist, tells us this search for complete certainty is a dream wrapped in a fantasy. Few things are crystal clear. And everyone is not certain about the same thing in exactly the same way? We fight over competing certainties. I am certain my certitude is right. I am certain the certitude of many others is misplaced.
Keats recommends that we stop reaching after fact and reason where none exist. He invites us to be in the inscrutabilities. That is where life takes place, in the midst of a ‘cloud of unknowing.’ We live in uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts. That’s a fact. Even as we strive to understand the knowable unknown, we must make peace with the unknowable unknown.
The American poet Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) wrote in his notebooks:
“Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.”
The poet, for one, must be vulnerable, not having all the answers even while seeking more questions. The poet is often misunderstood. People complain, her work is hard to fathom. But the poet must be willing to be present to the unknowable, to articulate what is almost beyond the reach of comprehension.
In another letter Keats writes:
“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.”
Poets thrive in negative capabilities.