Negative Capability

Negative Capability ( German about negative capability ) is a literary theory term that was coined by the English poet John Keats. It refers to the ability to accept that not every complex situation can be elucidated. For Keats have " great " thinkers, especially poets, have this ability. Many of Keats ' poems are deeply influenced by this idea.

As Romantics Keats spoke to the truths that are found in the human imagination, a sacred authority. Since this authority can not be explained from the outside, a related uncertainty must be taken into account. This state of uncertainty is located between the everyday, mundane reality and the countless possibilities of a full -understood reality. The term Negative Capability Keats used for the first time on 22 December 1817 in a letter to his brothers George and Thomas:

Negative Capability refers to a state of intentional open-mindedness to which there are parallels in the literary and philosophical settings of many other authors. Walter Jackson Bate, Keats's authorized biographer, wrote a whole book about this topic. In the 1930s, the American philosopher John Dewey Keats called " Negative Capability as a major influence on his own philosophical pragmatism, and found in Keats's letter " more productive of the psychology of thought as in many scientific treatises " (" [ it] contains more of the psychology of productive thought than many treatises "). Nathan Scott also points out in his book Negative Capability attention to comparisons with Martin Heidegger's concept of serenity.