Negative Capability
Celebrating Uncertainty
Keats
There is a familiar saying that "only the good die young." Perhaps nobody proves the
truth of this statement as much as the English poet, John Keats, who, born in 1795, would
die early in his 25th year. During his brief stay on earth, Keats became no stranger to
profound loss, beginning with the death of a brother who died in infancy. At age 10 his
father, a livery hand, was thrown from a horse and killed. Four years later his mother died
of tuberculosis. Four years after this he lost one of his beloved brothers to the same
disease. Just two years afterward the young surgeon turned poet, after ending an
engagement with the love of his life, would himself succumb to the unforgiving illness
that had already taken his mother and brother.
It’s obvious this young man experienced a very tragic and negative life, short as it was.
Nevertheless, he proved capable of accomplishing a great deal. Yet, he didn’t discover
his love for poetry until the last few years of his life. Indeed, most of his greatest work
was written in the span of a year—while he was terminally ill. Nevertheless he has
become known as one of Romanticism’s most important literary figures. Indeed, some
rank his work with the greatest in English language. His success as a poet at such an early
age, in such a brief span of time, is remarkable in itself. Compounding this with the fact
that he came from such humble beginnings, not the cultured sort of family that usually
produced poets, makes Keats’ accomplishments seem even more extraordinary.
Had he lived longer, and his thoughts matured, perhaps he would have been able to
expound more on an incredible philosophical phrase he coined in a letter to his brother—
"Negative Capability." This peculiar term, reminiscent of the eastern Master’s use of
paradox, (i.e., "Act without doing; work without effort. Think of the small as large and the
few as many.") is as alluring as it is confusing. What could Keats have possibly meant by
this, Negative Capability? Negativity seems almost the opposite of capability. Capability
suggests positive production or accomplishment. Negativity is loss, it takes something
away. Capability is addition. Negativity, subtraction. Perhaps Keats simply meant the
ability to be negative, which is really a zero, not an ability at all. Or, maybe he meant the
ability to remain capable in the midst of negativity, to accomplish great things in the face
of great difficulties. Certainly this was true of his own life.
But Keats himself seemed to suggest something much deeper and more meaningful than
even this. In his own words as stated in a letter to his brother on October 27, 1818,
"Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries,
doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." Keats used these words in
reference to writing poetry, citing Shakespeare, whom he greatly admired, as an example
of someone with Negative Capability. It seems in part, therefore, Keats was specifically
referring to the ability to empty one’s mind of prejudice, foregone conclusions and
certainty. Yet he seems to go even farther, implying not only must we let go of our
established ideas and beliefs, we must move into a state opposite of thought, into antithought, if you will. Just as in mathematics it’s possible to calculate on the negative side
of zero, we can also function in the negative side of thought—that place the mystics call
mystery.
Losing Your Mind
In this sense, Keats’ Negative Capability becomes reminiscent of the Buddhist notion of
no mind. The idea is that we must empty ourselves of all thought if we are to experience
reality as it really is, as a whole, rather than broken up in pieces and parts by
consciousness. Consciousness, or ego, the part of us that identifies with our thoughts,
functions by dividing and deciding. This results in a very limited awareness of reality
which we must then experience as a mixture of various components. Indeed, because of
its great expanse, when viewed in this way, we’re capable of experiencing only a small
sample of reality. Unfortunately when one person or group encounters another person or
group experiencing a different portion of reality, hostility can ensue, often leading to
violence and injustice.
For this reason, no mind is more something one practices through meditation and
emptying one’s mind, than an intellectual concept. It is an attempt to get away from all
attempts to categorize reality and experience. Alan Watts makes this point by reminding
us that every time we invent a category or concept we invent its opposite and we are
compelled, in our ability to divide, to now make a decision between the opposites. We are
now stuck with a right choice and a wrong choice. This is the sort of endless struggle and
confusion that goes on when we stay in our heads. "When everyone recognizes beauty as
beautiful, there is already ugliness; When everyone recognizes goodness as good, there is
already evil."[The Way of Zen, 115] To further make this point, Watts cites the oldest of
Zen poems:
The perfect Way [Tao] is without difficulty,
Save that it avoids picking and choosing.
Only when you stop liking and disliking
Will all be clearly understood.
A split hair’s difference,
And heaven and earth are set apart!
If you want to get the plain truth,
Be not concerned with right and wrong.
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind.[Ibid.]
Fritjof Capra writes, "The experience of Zen is thus the experience of satori, and since
this experience, ultimately, transcends all categories of thought, Zen is not interested in
any abstraction or conceptualization. It has no special doctrine or philosophy, no formal
creeds or dogmas, and it asserts that this freedom from all fixed beliefs makes it truly
spiritual."[The Tao of Physics,122] Again, all of this seems comparable to Keats’ notion
of Negative Capability, "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable
reaching after fact and reason."
Emptiness
When Keats wrote a poem he attempted to become his subject by abandoning his own
beliefs and prejudices. In this way, poetry, is free to flow up from one’s depth, from the
soul, rather than falling down from one’s head. The first few lines of Keats’ Ode on a
Grecian Urn is a good example:
Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Notice how he begins this poem with a series of questions about the images on the urn,
rather than with an explanation of those images. Keats has abandoned thought and
allowed himself to enter into mystery. Thus the urn he romanticizes becomes the perfect
metaphor of Negative Capability. In a sense, to know the images on the outside of the
urn, Keats must step into the mystery within the urn. Inside there is nothing but
emptiness—no thought, no division, no decision. This brings us to quite a literal
understanding of the term, Negative Capability. "Capability" comes from the Latin word
capabilis, which means "able to hold." So when we speak of being capable, the emphasis
is not on ability, but on the specific ability to become a container, to become the urn. The
root is the same as in the words capacity and capacious, indicating capability has as
much to do with space as it does ability.
So we may better understand what is meant by Negative Capability if we translate it as
Negative Space. This gets very close to Einstein’s notion that reality is a field of energy.
Particles, which make up matter, are really just localized condensations of the Unified
Field, of energy. So, all that really exists is the field, the space, the ability to hold. As
Einstein put it, "We may therefore regard matter as being constituted by the regions of
space in which the field is extremely intense… There is no place in this new kind of
physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality."[Tao of Physics,211]
This seems to be exactly what Keats was getting at. As a poet, he realized he had to let go
of all his concepts about the Universe if he was going to know the Universe, release the
particle to know the field. He had to empty himself of himself in order to become one
with his subject. He did this by entering Negative Space, through his ability to enter
Negative Space.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal -- yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
Forever piping songs forever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,
Forever panting, and forever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Life as Poetry
As I mentioned earlier, it’s unfortunate Keats died before he could mature along with this
very mature notion of Negative Capability. Who knows what he may have had to say
about it if he’d had more of an opportunity to let it develop? Although, this is, perhaps,
itself part of its definition—incomplete and ill-defined. How can we have a fully
developed concept about something that reminds us to rid ourselves of our concepts?
Furthermore, because it is so ill-defined, mysterious, it provides us the freedom to play
with the notion, and to apply it to all areas of our lives, beyond the realm of poetry, if, in
the end, there is anything beyond poetry.
One of the best examples I’ve heard of Negative Capability came during a recent
conversation with my friend Ernie Breton. Ernie, who has spent his life as an inventor,
reminded me that Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, tried 900 filaments before
he finally got the right one. Ernie was making the point that the true mark of an inventor
is the ability to live with failure. If Edison used 899 filaments that failed, and one that
worked, then he was certainly a failure more often than a success. Most of us would
probably have given up after less than a dozen tries, because most of us can’t live with
failure and don’t want to perceive ourselves as failures. Imagine how disappointed
Edison must have been as attempt after attempt failed. Why did he continue? Because, he
was a failure! As Ernie put, "it is the failures who make the best inventors."
We might also say, Thomas Edison had, what the Buddhist call, Beginner’s Mind. This is
the idea that we must enter into things fresh, for the first time every time, "without any
irritable reaching after fact and reason." It’s obvious Edison had to keep a fresh
approach each and every time he attempted to create a working light bulb, otherwise he
would have been overcome by his sense of failure. So, it seems, Beginner’s Mind is part
of the definition of Negative Capability, as is the ability to live with failure, to exist in a
negative space.
Most importantly, I think, Negative Capability is vital to how we relate to the world and
to those around us. If we can learn to approach others with this sense of awe and
humility, surrendering to mystery, surrendering our certainties, then the world would be a
much better place. We would respect each other, rather than ending up in endless
conflicts over our differences. We would give up our neurotic need to be right and live
comfortably with our failure, knowing our mistakes might well lead us to something new
and exciting, rather than the old warn out patterns of the tried and tested. Negative
Capability is a call to failure, a call to uncertainty, a call to question, a call to mystery,
and to the peace of mind and the peace with others that naturally accompany these.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." [Keats,1819 1820]