Description
Contra Mundum Press Negative Capability by Walter Jackson Bate Translated by Dominic Siracusa Introduction by Maura Del Serra
Walter Jackson Bates canonical 1939 study of Keatss concept of negative capability is a genealogical treatise that unearths the socio-political aesthetic and intellectual composition of Keatss most famous poetic idea. He discloses its relation to Hazlitts idea of gusto and to Shakespearean notions of impersonality and intensity while also demonstrating how negative capability presages Bergsons conceptual interpretation of intellect and intuition. Bate reveals how the key elements of Keatss poetic concept are disinterestedness sympathy impersonality and dramatic poetry defining negative capability as the ability to negate or lose ones identity in something larger than oneself - a sympathetic openness to the concrete reality without an imaginative identification a relishing and understanding of it. With negative capability Keats railed against the rampant egotism of his epoch and challenged the certainty of its claims to knowledge. While embracing reality Keats urged the necessity of abiding in uncertainties mysteries and doubts. This new edition brings back into print Bates indispensable work and features an introduction by the distinguished Italian poet playwright and literary critic Maura Del Serra. With its republication Eliots proclamation on Keats is given new force: that there is hardly one statement of Keats about poetry which . will not be found to be true.show more