Keats’ Negative Capability and the creative process
Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason. (John Keats, 1817)
Negative Capability is a perplexing concept that is often made to be more difficult than it really is, even though Keats provides us with a detailed definition that is almost too concise to paraphrase. Nevertheless the accounts of what Negative Capability truly is seem to differ a great deal.
Negative Capability could be seen as a creative trance, which is supported by its references in Keats’ odes: In “Ode to a Nightingale” the speaker hears a nightingale from a forest, upon which he enters a trance-like journey “on the wings of poesy”, which is only interrupted when he remembers events from his past, therefore invoking reason.
Alternatively, you can describe Negative Capability as an intentional state of mind, allowing you to effectively ignore fact & reason in favour of “a sense of beauty.”
These are just some quick attempts at trying to box in what the concept of Negative Capability stands for. However, what I am much more interested in doing is discussing what it means in relation to the creative process. While Negative Capability is most commonly associated with literature, it translates easily any area of expertise as it is simply a “quality that forms a man of achievement”.
A while ago I had a discussion with Anne from Hot Cards about how Negative Capability could influence the creative process. According to her Negative Capability allows you “to explore creativity without the constant self-editing that can paralyse productivity”.
On the other hand she suggested that Negative Capability can be “an excuse for laziness”; a trance of creative expression can prevent a “passionate intellectual struggle”. Yet this is exactly what Keats was trying to explain in his letter to his brothers: Abolishing the intellectual ping-pong game in favour of a sense of beauty. Genuine Negative Capability might circumvent the classical creative process, yet that does not reveal anything about the quality of it’s outcome.
Negative Capability is a creative ideal, which some argue cannot be achieved. This forces us to re-evaluate Negative Capability as an excuse for laziness yet again: A false sense of Negative Capability may be an excuse, while sincere Negative Capability is an artistic ideal that even Keats struggled to achieve.
Negative Capability always has a final outcome, one that ignores fact & reason in favour of a sense of beauty. I agree with Anne that “languishing in a state of euphoric uncertainly could be career suicide” as selling your idea becomes increasingly difficult when you are locked into trance.
Knowing when to stop is the key to producing anything beautiful, whether produced through the laborious process involving fact & reason or through Negative Capability, even though true Negative Capability is not an eternal trance and should signal resolution automatically.
No matter whether Negative Capability is achievable or not, it is a creative asymptote, something that you should always try to reach. And if you believe that Negative Capability is unattainable, do not forget that it is you, who has to end your creative process after having found beauty.
// Anne
Wednesday, March 19th 2008
at 19:48 PM
Great post, Dominik! At first, I was thinking of saying something snarky here, to the effect of what clients would say to being charged for eight hours of Negative Capability on an invoice.
But.
Then I started to think about what a really courageous person Keats was. For one thing, he trained as an apothecary, but gave it up to become a poet. Even back in the 1800s, this was not a wise career move, but he did what he knew was important to him. For another thing, he knew that he wasn’t going to live to be an old man; he feared never being able to produce the body of work that he knew he had in him, and still he afforded time and attention to the pursuit of a state of uncertainty, mystery, and doubt.
All this to say, that when your art is your bread and butter, it’s hard to ignore the bottom line in a quest for beauty (truth), but the example of Keats’ own life shows me that days spent constantly grasping are not days spent as bravely as an artist could/should spend her time, no matter how brief or abundant that time might be.
// Dominik Lenk
Thursday, March 20th 2008
at 3:27 AM
Anne: Thanks for letting me use part of our conversation in here; you caused me a couple extra thought circles, which is great.
On the note of invoicing negative capability: I never thought of that. I should definitely try that out one time. (Be careful, clients, be careful:-)