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English Literature / Unit 19   ENL 1805 short lesson, about 20 seconds

Shelley's Defence and Keats's Letters

Captions available

The idea

Shelley's Defence of Poetry, answering Peacock, called poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Keats, in a letter to his brothers, defined Negative Capability: being "in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason."

In practice

Legislators; uncertainty.

Where people slip

Keats's idea comes from a private letter.

Your place on the trail

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