English Literature / Unit 13 ENL 1215 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Negative Capability
Captions available
The idea
In a letter of December eighteen seventeen to his brothers, Keats described Negative Capability, which Shakespeare possessed: "when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason." He set it against Coleridge's need for certainty.
In practice
Living in uncertainty without grasping.
Where people slip
It is from a private letter.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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