Negative Capability and Wise Passiveness
Negative Capability and Wise Passiveness
Negative Capability and Wise Passiveness
,
:1
,.
,
113
It 1s the culminat10n of his philosophy of soul-makinc and of his concept
.of Negat1ve Capability.
"To Autumn" was wr1 tten when Keate wae et'll.yine at lIinchester in
September, 1819. He was, enthralled by the beauty of the aeason and on :21
September he wrote to Reynolds describing the inspiration for the Odc I
How beautiful ,the season is now -- How fine the air. A tempera tc
about 1t. Really, without joking, chaste weather --
Dian skies --'1 never lik'd stubble ,fields BO much as now -- Aye
better than the chilly green of the sprine. Somehow a stubbls'
plain looks -- in the same way.that some pictures look warm
th1s' struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon
it.:n
Some of these phrases actually appear in the Ode and, although the poem
goes far beyond th1s physical Getting, the theme remains basically autumn
itself. Keats uses a set of personal 1mpresBions, taken from his natural
surroundings, to catch h1s philoeophic mood at 'this time -- a mood, as he
The theme, as I stated above, 1s autumn itself, and the poem opens
with an apostrophe to the season and with a description of nature at 1ts
richest and ripest Through concentration on details of the fruit,
the flowers, and the beeG, Keats creates an exquisitely vivid, lush, and
colourfUl picture. It is a depiction of perfection, of fulfilment, of
ri peneGs, of growth reach1ng its climax beneath "the maturing sun" as the
vines and trees bend beneath the weight of their fruit.
Yet amid this 'atta1ned fulfilment there is st111 a sense of on-
going growth, of process, achieved by the use of the present participle
"maturing sun" (1. 2) and "Conspiring" (1. J) -- and by the idea of the
sun and autumn conspir1ng "to set budd1ng more, / And still more, later
-
,
I
,
114
flowers" (1. 9), so that the bseD are deoe1ved 1nto feeling that sUJ1llller
w1ll never end. As Bate po1nta out, Keats has ach1evDd "a union of process
and stasis (or what Keats had called I stationing'). ,,34 His commentary
continues I
\/hat the heart really wanta is being found. Here at last is .
something of a cenuine paradise, therefore. It even has its
de1ty -- a benevolent deity, that wantD not only to 'load and
b l e ~ a , but alao to 'apare', to prolong, to set 'budding more',
And yet all thi.s is put with concrete exactness and fidelity.
But Bate,like many other critics, seems to miss the negative
'aspects or htnts civen in this stanza which ahowthat the poet is aware
of the. passage of time.and so of perfection. In the last line there is a
reference to the summer which has already past, and, by implication, autumn
will pass likewiae. The poet also telle ua that the bees "think warm days
will never cease" (1. 10). Thie use of the verb ".think" meaning "believe"
shows that tho poet knows more than theYI he knows that warm days will
cease and, unlike the beea, he 10 not unaware of the fact that beauty is
tnneient and perfection momentsXy. But the poet's awarenecs of these
things in no way detracts from the rich, sensuoUs beauty of the scene,
instead, it heightens that beauty.
In stanza II the poet's imagination enters into the descr1pt10n
and we get autumn personified in three appropriate settings. The personi-
fications are remarkably resonant and evocative, presenting images that
hover between the traditional allegorical f1gure of autumn as a woman and
,
the purely natural scene. For example, in the first personification there
.
is a figure "sitting careless on a granary floor" (1. 14), but the "hair
soft-lifted by the winnowing wind" (1. is) is a strange mixture of human
hair and stalko of wheat. suggested by "winnowing". Thus the human and
!
11.5
natural are beautifully integrated. Nowhere are we given a oonorote figuro
of a woman, but a eenGe of femininity pervades the pioturo and hovers like
an animating epirit in the natural soene.
It is a1eo significant that, in hor relaxed ,posturoo, "Drowe'd
with the fume of poppies" (1. 17), autumn aeems to be in a otate of
"dl1igent indolence" similar to that achieved by the poet in the provious
Odes. In this state she both fully appreciates the beauty of the se,aeon
and calmly accepta ito paosing away. She io truly exercising Negativo
Capability, and so is similar, to the poet.
Of the second stanza, Bat'e says.
it is oomething of a reverse or mirror image of the first -- we
find sti1lneos whoro we expect proceso. For now autumn is con-
ceived ao a reaper or harvester. Yet it is a harvoster that, is
not harvesting. Thio benevolent deity is at first motionlesa,
'sitting careless on a granary floor', or asleep on a 'half-
\ reap'd furrow', while its 'hook / Spares the next owath and all
its twined flowers' -- spares not only the 'full grain but those
'later flowcra' that are interlocking with it. Hovement begins
only in the latter part of the stanza. Even thon it is only
ouggested in the momentary glimpses of the figure keeping
'steady' its 'laden head' ae it crosses a brook.;5
This is true. there io 0 sonoe of the prolonging of autumn fulfilment, but
there is also a senae tho t time is passing and autumn with it. Autumn has
become a "gleaner" and, despite the fact that she "Spares the next swath"
(1. 18), she has already begun to bring the flowers to an end, "next"
implying that she haa already cut some. The "last oozinge" (1. 22) of the
cyder-press auggest that the end is approaching, whl1e "houre by hours"
signifies time passing away. There is a paradoxical mixture of lingering
and passing, but there is no doubt that autumn is withdrawing, that the
death of the year is approaching, that perfection must pass.
This idea comes out moro strongly in stanza III where we leave the
/
c
116
..
q
personif1ed. _figure of autumn and return to concrete 1mages of life aD we
,
got 1n stanza I. But where stanza I 10 a oe1obrat10n of: the 01ghts of
,
autumn, th1s 10 a ce1ebrat10n of 1te BoundS.
,
Whoro are tho songs 'of Spr1ng?' Ay, where are they?
'Think not of them, thou hD.IJt thy mUB1c too, --'
Wh110 barred. c10udB bloom the ooft-dy1ng dan
And touch tho otubb1e-plaino with rosy.hue, "
Thon 1n a wailful choir tho small gnats mourn
Among tho r1vor oa110wo, borno aloft
Or sinking ao the 11ght wind lives or dieo,
And full-gro)m loud bleat from hilly bourn,
Hedgo-crickets Bing, and now with treb10 soft
The red-breast wh10'tleo from a garden-croft,
And gathoring swallowe tw1.tter in the okieo.
(11. 23-:3:3)
The open1ne question implies that' the season of youthful SPring
has long passed, and with it ite beautiful sounds. Timo and the seaeone
pass. But !!rutumn has its mus10 too, found iri tho "wailful ohoir" of "small
gnats", the bloat of the lambB, the cricket's song, the robin'e whistle,
and the swallows' twittering. The images of these animals are extremely
rich, but in no way clOying, and there is a remarkable sense of crches-
trated eound. But although this etanza contains the richeet 1magery, it
also hae the greatest sense of autumn paesing away, and it ie to Keate's
credit ae a poet that he can achieve thie magnificent richness in conjunc-
,tion with an underlying mood of melancholy.
The hint of autumn pass1ng is first given at the beginning of line
:3 where the word ''lIhl1e'' makes us realize that the music of autumn will
only last whllebarred clouds do. lilao in line :3 we get "eoft-dy1ng day",
a eymbol, however gentle, of' the a-PPrCD.ch1ng end, of' death, and this 1mage
1e found, rather oddly; 1n conjunct1on with the verb wh1ch suggests
fru1tion. But the of the two 1s deliberate and servee to re1nforce
the theme that in the richoat, most intense moment of' beauty there 1s a
117
melancholy" sense that it must pass. In the fourth line we get "stubble-
plains" which suggest that the crop has already been harvested, is gone,
while in the fifth line the "wailiul choir" of "small gnats" who "mourn"
heightens the sense of melancholy. They seem to be aware of the approachIng
eoo.. Even the "light wind" which "lives or dies" suggests an easy passage
from Ilie int'o death. In the eighth line, the "full-grown lambs". suggest
that growth aoo. fuliilment are over; while the "gathering swallows" suggest.
not only the approaching nightfall, but also "gathering" for mlg'ration
south as winter and death approach. But it is important to note that. they
are still "gathering", and the day, like the season, is "soft-<iying" -
the use of the present particIple creates a sense of lingering, and Keats
has managed to capture autumn in its most intensely aoo. poignantly
beautiful moment.
Bate insiSts on calling this poem perfect aoo. I fully agree with
him. He says,
the whole is perfected -- carried through to -1 ts completion --
solely by means of the given parts; and the parts observe
decoru3 by contributing directly to the whole, with nothing
left dangling or ioo.ependent.
Not only the o ~ structure but the whole conception
of the odal hymn becomes transjDrent before its subject. The
poet himseli is completely absent; there is no 'I', no sugges-
tion of the discursive language that we find in the other odesl
the poem is entirely concro;:te, and seli -sufficient in ani
through its concreteness.J6
Desptte its seli-sufficient completeness, however, ~ o Autumn" is
even richer when viewed in conjunction with the other Odes .for it is the
culmination of Keats's phllosophy and it contains perfectly his belief
that pleasure aoo. pain ara closely, integrally, related; that the appre-
hension of intense beauty -- such as we get in this ode -- must involve a
feeling of melancholy because this beauty is transient. Joy aoo. so=ow
118
cannot exist without each other -- at least not here on earth -- and the
experience of one is heightened' by the attendance of the other. But nowhere
is this theme explicitly stated as we get in "Ode on Melancholy"; the theme
of transitoriness and mortality is only suggested, the theme is inherent
in the natural images. As Leonard Unger says I
Whereas in 'Ode on Melancholy' the theIle, in one of its aspects,
is the immediate subject, in 'To Autumn' the season is the
subject am the details which describe and thus present the
subject are also the medium by whibh the theme is explored. The
relationship between subject and(yheme is not one of analogy.
The thetle inheres in the subject and is at no point stated in
other terms. That is why we could say, in our reading of the
poem, that the subject is both the reality and the symbol.37
But to extract the theme from the subject for a moment. It is
.
important to note that despite the sense of melancholy ani the suggested
awareness of the approach of the end, there is a total acceptance of
mortality and transitoriness. The poet has come to accept death totally as
an integral part of life, There are no wild questions and "By accepting
the signs of decay and disappearance in all its s=ounding world, the soul
matures itself into a f ~ ~ completion, "38 The ~ is, then, the end of
,.
,.
Keats's philosophy of soul-making. To adopt Keats's own analogy, the school
has been accepted by the child and the child has learnt to read, the soul
has learnt to accept and to love the world in all its diverse aspects.
This results fro. the exercise of Negative Capability" that mood of calm
in which he is reconciled to life without having to rationalize it. It is
, an acceptance based on faith - his faith in soul-maldng -- and this in
turn is based on his imaginative perception of the real world. The truth
of life, or wisdom, is received by the imagination in a calm state of
Negative Capability or "wise passiveness".
FOOTIDTES TO cHAPI'ER I
l Keats ,s letter of 27(?) December, 1817 to George and Tom Keats
in The Letters of John Keats, ed. Hyder E. Rollins (Cambridge, 1958), I,
193-194. Cited hereafter as Letters. The original spelling is maintained
throughout.
2Keats (Oxford, 1926), p. 41.
3Keats (Loman, 1955), pp. 281-282. This book \las first published
as StudieSiilKeats (Loman, 1930).
4Negative Capability (Cambridge, 1939), p. 66.
5Ibfd., p. 12.
6Ibid;, p. 66.
7 ~
Letters, I, 169.
~ i d I, 212. See also p. 202.
9
Ibid., I, 203.
10
Negative Capability, p. 29.
11
Letters, II, 80.
12"Negative Capability and Vise Passiveness", RolLA, LXVII (June,
1952), 383.
1 ~ 1 d . p. 389.
14
See, for example, C. D. Thorpe, 'IliordSllorth and Keats ~ A Study
in Personal am. Critical Impression", R{LA, XXXXII (1927), 1010-1026.
119
."
120
. .
'Letters, I, 231-
16"Negative Capability and \lise Passiveness", p. 389.
17John Keats (llew Y=k, 19(3), p. 161.
11'1 .
Poetics of Romanticism (Yellow Springs, 19(9), p. 128.
19
Ibid., p. 130.
20"The It.eaning of the Odes", in Kenneth Muir, ed., John Keats. A
Reassessment (Liverpool, 1969), p. 64.
21 '
John Keats (Harmondsw=th, 1971),. p. 287.
Literaria, ed. Ge=ge llatson (London, 19(5), p. 256.
2L r
Balslev, f= example, states. "In this instance it is
Coleridge who is blamed by; Keats for not being content with half-knowledge,
but ll=dsworth would qualify as well." (Keats and llordsworth, Cope!1ha&en,
1962, p. 159). .
I
,
..
121
FOOTI{)TES TO CHAPTER II
1
Keats, p. 290.
I
2r.etters, I, 193.
, , .
3will1am Babington, ).I.D. and W1lliam Allen, F .L.S. list i; the1r
Introduction to A Svllabus of a Course of Chemical Lectures Read at Gu 's
Hospital (London, 1 02 , the two following items that are to be studied by
medical students, " .
7. Of the It,otion of bodies, as collUltUIlicated to them by external
Impulse, or excited in them by the1r disposition to attract,
or repel each other. '
8. Of the different species of Attraction which originate from
this viz. of Magnetism -- of Electricity --
Capillany Attraction -- Attraction of Gravitation -- Attrac-
tion of Aegregation or Cohesion, and Cneoical Attraction. (p. 2)
(From liilliam Babington, H.D. F.R.S. and James/ Curry, l-i.D. F.A.S., Outlines
of a Course of Lectures on the Practice' of Hedicine as Delivered in The
Medical School of Guy's Hospital, London, 1802-1806).
4 \
That Keats was not unaware of the topic of electricity is evidenced
in his letter to George and Georgiana of 19 Harch, 1819 in which he states
that "there is an ellectric f1re in human nature tending to purify --"
(Letters, II, 80). Here Keats seems to be using a mixed metaphor that draws
on the traditional religious bellef that fire purifies, and the contemporary
idea of electrolysis, in which electro-chemical decomposition takes place
breaking down compounds into the1r pure component parts. .
It is also not implausible that Keats might have discussed the
topic of electricity with Shelley in the Hunt c1rcle. We know for a fact
that Shelley was very interested in electricity wh1le at school and he had
heard S1r Humphry Davy lecture on the topic.
5.n,e Collected Works of S1r Humphry Davy ed. John Davy, Vol. V,
Bakerian Lectures and Hiscellaneous Papers from 1806 to 1815, (London, 1840),
p. 2. See also Eichael Faraday's view on the idea,
It will be well understood that I am giving no opinion respecting
the nature of the electric current now, beyond what I have done
on former occasions I and that though I. speak of the cu=ent as
. proceePJ.ng from the parts which are positive to those which are
negative, it is merely in accordance with the conventional,
though in some degree tacit, agreement entered into by scientific
men, that they may have a constant, certain, and definite means '
of referring to the d1rection of the forces of that current.
(Experimental Researches in Electricity, Vol. I, Londop, 1839).
given,
numbers for those'poems by Wordsworth quoted in the text
in parentheses, in the text. Quotations from poems of 1798
are
122
edition of Ballads are cited from Lyrical Ballads, 1798, ed,
v, J. B, OwenLondon, 1967), Quotations from the 1805 edition of
Prelude are cited from The Prelude (Text of 1805), ed. E. deSelincourt,
rev. Helen Darbishire, corrected by Stephen Gfll (London, 1970). All
other quotations from ilordsworth's poems are from Poetical \lorks, ed.
Thomas Hl.\tchinson,' rev. E. de Selincourt (Oxford, 1936).
7It is interesting to note that Keats describes his creative mood
while writing the "Ode to Psyche" in similar terms: "This I have done
leisurely -- I'think it reads the more richly for it and will I hope
encourage me to write other thing[s] in even a more peacable and healthy
spirit." (Letters, II, 106,: italics 1I\ine). This creative mood of peace
and health seems to be very similar to Vordsworth's "wise passiveness".
, ,
8 '
As I will be dealing with Keats's and Vordsworth's attitudes to
rationalism in ,chapter V, I will not deal with it in any detall here.
9"On Hanner" in The Round Table and Characters of Shakespear' s
Plays, intro. by C. M. Maclean (London, 19)6), pp. 45"'"46.
comments I
The Hindoos that we see about the streets are another example of
this. They are a different race from ourselves. They wander about, '
in a luxurioue dream. They are like part of a glittering process-
ion, -- like revellers in some gay carnival. Their life is a dance,
a'measure, they hardly seem to tread the earth, but are borne
along in some more genial element, and.bask in the radiance of
brighter suns' The people of the East make it their busi-
ness to sit and. think and do nothing. They indulge in endless
reverie, for the' incapacity of enjoyment IJ.Jes not impose on them
the necessity of action.
, (The Round Table, p. 46).
The emphasis on the dream-like state of indolence would, undoubtedly. have
interested Keats a great deal.
209-210, italics mine. In dealing with these letters
and poems, unless otherwise indicated, the italics are mine.
12Tbid., I, 214.
1
J
Ibid., I, 231-233.
14The Evolution of Keats's Poetry (Cambridge, 19)6), I, 367.
15Keats and Ilordsworth (Copenhagen, 1%2), p. 23.
16
It is interesting to notice how much the young Keats was influenced
"
123
by Ballads, althoush this is not surprising if we remember that
these poems are the outpourings of liordsworth's Olm relatively youthful
I11nd, arld it is perhaps to the younger Wordsworth that: Keats was most
attracted in his early days of writing.
17
The Evolution of Keats's Poetry, I, 367.
l11:.etters, II, 213.
19
Ibid., I, 231-232.
20Keats The Poet (Princeton, 1973), p. 63.
account is in his letter of 7 May, 1849 to R. M.
Milnes in Hyder E. RO,lllns, ed., The Keats Circle (Cambridge, 1965), II,
276.
22See Thora Balslev, Keats and Wordsworth, pp. 116-117 for another
interesting parallel between l/ordsworth's account of myth and a passage in
HyPerion.
23 ' ,
Keats's great interest in Tintern Abbey is evidenced in his long
letter of 3 1818 to Reynolds (Letters, I, 278-281) in which he dis-
cusses Wordsworth's poetic progress.
24
C. Keats's Shakespeare (Oxford, 1966), p. 151.
Poetics of Romanticism, p. 104. In Sleep and Poetry Keats
observes that "for what there be worthy in these rhymes 7 I partly owe
,to him [sleep)" (ll. 347-348), and in Endymion he praises "mag:1.c sleep" as
the key to all the mazy world 7 Of Silvery enChantment!"
(Book I,ll. 453-461).
Wordsworth also emphasizes the state of "weariness", that dream-
like state, in which the Greek shepherd creates myths (The Excursion, Book
IV), and in Tintern Abbey he emphasizes that "serene and blessed mood" in
which he is "laid asleep in body" while his imagination takes over.
26
Letters, II, 77-79.
27
Ibid
., II, 77.
'II, 106.
29Quoted by l/. J. Bate in his John Keats (Cambridge, 1966), p. 501.
See also Keats's letters to Fanny Keats on 12 April, 1819 (Letters, II, 51)
._.. - ____ " ___ ________ .. W ... "' ...... \ .. ItL"' -,.::ru,..,,;s:;r .. . .r:<_: ... .. -..-',. .
124
and to Haydon on 13 April, 1819 (Letters, II, 55), both of which stress
his mood of idleness.
II, 116.
II, 71.
3
2
Keats and Wordsworth, p; 38.
3'- .
I, 287.
34
Ibid., I, 271.
35Ibid., II, 113. See also his comment to George and' Georgiana, "I
must again begin with my poetry - for if I am not in action mind or Body
I am in pain." (Letters, II, 12).
36Lyrical Ballads 1798, p. 157.
371 realize, of course, that Keats more than likely never The
PrelMe as--ft was only published twenty-nine years after his death, and
although .1 have tried to confine my study of Wordsworth's influence to
poems published while Keats was alive, the similarities between the two
poets in this respect warrant some attention. llordsworth is, after all
. expressing a completed view of ideas we have seen developing in his other
poetry prose.
I, 374. Keats's italics. See also Keats's comments to
Reynolds on Lamia, "I have great hopes of success, because I make use of
my Judgment more deliberately than I have yet done". He also says in this
letter that he has spent "many thoughtful days". (Letters, II, 128).
Criticism of William Wordsworth, ed. Paul M. Zall
(Lincoln, 140-141. It is interesting to note that 1n his
Anatomical and Physiological Note Book Keats notes that "The Mind has
3 Functions, 1 }lemory, 2 Judgment 3 Imagination". (John Keats's Anatomical
and Physiological Note Book, ed. M. Buxtog Forman, New York, 1970, p.2).
4O"Keats am HazUtt" in John Keats, A Reassessment, p. 149.
II, 81.
42"Keats am Hazlitt" , p. 148.
I, 238.
-
""'"
,
125
44The iUnd of John Keats (New York, 1964), p. 184. Keats had.
express<!. a similar idea earlier to Reynolds. "Poetry should pe great &
unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does startle
it or amaze it with its eli but with its subject."' (Letters, I, 224).
45See, for example, Muir, "Keats and Hazlitt", p. 148. A passage
I have notic<!. in Hazlitt's writing that may have been is his
comment on The Tempest. ". the character of Caliban not. only stands
before us with a language and manner of its own, but the scenery and
situation,of the enchant<!. island he inhabits, the traditions of the
familiar! ty of an old reco'llection." ("On Shakespeare and Hilton" in
Lectures on the English Poets. intro. by A.R. London & New York,
n.d., p. 48). We know that Y.eats attend<!. these lectures and studi<!. them
afterwards.
46 '
. The of John Keats, p. 184.
47Vordsworth's distinction between the Fancy and the Imagination
is given in the 1815 Preface in Literary Criticism of Wordsworth,
p. 153.
48vordsworth also states in the 1815 Preface that "When the Imagin-
ation frames a comparison, if it does not strike on the first presentation,
a sense of the truth of the likeness, from the that it is perceiv<!.,
grows -- and continues to grow -- upon the mind". a claim that is somewhat
similar to Keats's idea of poetry surprising by an excess. (Literary Criti-
cism of William Wordsworth, p. 153).
49
Letters, I, 238.
50Lyrical Ballads 1798, pp. 166-167.
passage from "Sleep and Poetry" to which I am referring is.
Could all this be forgotten? Yes a schism
Nutur<!. by foppery and barbarism,
"Jade great Apollo blush for this his land.
Men were wise who could not understand
His glories. with a puling infant's (orce
They sway<!. about upon a rocking horse,
And thought it Pegasus. Ah dismal soul' d !
The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll'd
Its gathering waves -- ye felt it not. The blue
Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew
Of summer nights collect<!. still to make
The morning precious. beauty was awake!
Vhy were ye not awake? But ye were dead.
To things ye know not of, - were closely w<!.
To musty laws lined out with wretched rule
And compass vile. 50 that ye taught a school
Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit,
Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit,
Their verses tallied.
(11. 181-199).
These eighteenth-century poets would not allow physical sensations, exper-
ienced from nature, to spur them into imaginative speculation. Instead,
they followed a preconceived, artificial system of poetics that Is the
. antithesis of Keats's concept of Negative Capability.
52- .
-Letters, I, 238-239.
53The Round Table, p. 24.
54Lyrical Ballads 1798, p. 157.
\
(
,
I
"
127
FOOTNOTES ro CHAPI'ER III
1
Letters, I, 223-224.
2See , far example, C. D. Thorpe, "\lordswarth and Keats -- a Study
in Personal and Critical Impression", p. 1016, ar K. "Keats and
Hazlitt", p. 147.
3"Observations on Mr. llordswarth's Poem The Ex=sion" in The
Round Table, p. 1i3. Hazl1tt states the same idea in'his lecture "On the
Living Poets" where he
Mr. llordsworth is the most ariginal poet now l1ving
His poetry is not external, but internal; it does not d'epend
upon tradition, ar story, or old song; he furnishes it from
his own mind, and is his own subject. He is the poet of mere
sentiment.
(Lectures on the English Poets, p. 156)
lle know that Keats attended this Cd. ll. J. Bate,John Y.eats,
pp. 259-260). '
4 '
Selected Prose of John Hamilton Reynolds, ed. L. M. Jones (Cam-
bridge, 1966), p. 76. In his essay "The Quarterly Review -- Y..eats",
Reynolds echoes the same idea of llordswarthl is a difficult
mark to fit, and few minds can send the a=ow full home; Wordsworth might
have safely cleared the rapids in the stream of time, but he lost himself
by looking at his own image in the waters." (Selected Prose, p. 227).
5awen glosses liordswarth's use of "feelings" in this case as
"faculties, analogous to the physical senses, which respond to stimulus
from without". (Words warth as CrUic, Toronto, 1969, p. 38).
6wordsW'orth as Crt tic, p. 41.
7
Letters, I, 232.
8
Keats The Poet, p. 59. Sperry's study of Y.eats's ideas on how
poetry should affect the reader is generally excellent.
9 -
Ibid., p. 55.
10
On the narrow scope of modern poetry compared to the "great and
unobtrusive" poetry of the Elizabethans, Keats may be again indebted to
Hazlitt, who writesl
The great fault of a modern school of poetry is, that it 1s an
experiment to reduce poetry to a mere effusion of natural
sensibility I or what is'worse, to diest it both of imaginary
splendour and human passion, to surround the meanest objects
with the morbid feelings and devouring egotism of the writers'
own minds.
128
("On Shakespeare and MiltonHin Lectures on the English Poets, p. 53).
li"Observations on Mr. poem The Excursion" in The
Round Table, p. 112.
I, 237.
I
,
13Ibid., I, 184. Keats's term "Mon of Genius" may been bo=owed
from Hazlitt, who states in his essay "On Posthumous,Fame" that Shakespeare
"was almost entirely a man of genius He seemed scarcely to have an
individual existence of his own, but to borrow that of others at will, and
to pass successively through 'every variety of untried being' ,. -- to be
now Hamlet, now Othello, now Lear, now Falstaff, now Ariel. In the mingled
and feelings belonging to this range of imaginary reality,
in the tumult and rapid transitions of this waking dream, the author could
not easily find time to think of himself, nor wish to embody that personal
identity in idle reputation after death, of which he was so little tena-
cious while living." (The RoundTable, p. 23).
I, 184. Here Keats is using the word "ethereal" with a
scientific meaning. As Sir Humphry Davy explains it in his discussion "Of
Radiant or Ethereal Matter",
In treating of the different substances which, by their agencies,
combinations, or decompositions, produce the phenomena of chemis-
try -- radiant or ethereal matters will be first considered, as
their principal effects seem rather to depend upon their commun-
icating motion to the particles of common matter than to
their actually entering into combination with them.
The Collected Works of Sir Da , Vol. IV, Elements of
Chemical Philosophy, p. 140
15tetters, II, 19. Keats disliked painting Death on the
Pale Horse because "in this picture we have unpleasantness without any
momentous depth of speculation excited" (Letters, I, 192). It is not the
unpleasantness he objects to, but the fact that the painting does not
allow the viewer to entertain speculations.
16
Letters, I, 387. The term "egotistical sublime" Keats may have
developed from himself for Wordsworth uses the term "sublime"
quite often in connection with consciousness of self. For example, in the
1815 Preface Wordsworth states that the creative aspect of the imagination
works by "alternations proceeding from, and governed by, a sublime con-
sciousness of the soul in her own mighty and almost divine powers."
(Literary Criticism of William Wordsworth, p. 149).
,129
17Letters, II, 11.
18In his lecture "On Shakespeare and Milton" Hazl1tt statesl
The striking peculiarity of Shakespears's mind was its generic
quality, its power of communication with all other minds -- so
that it contained a universe of thought and feeling within itself,
and had no one peculiar bias, or exclusive excellence more than
another. He was just like any other man, but that he was like all
other men. He was ,the least of an egotist that it was possible
to be. He nothing in himself, but he was'all that others were,
or that they could become. He not only had in himself the germs
of every faculty and feeling, but he could follow them by anti-
cipation, intuitively, into all their conceivable ramifications,
through every change of fortune or co'nflict of passion, or turn
of thought. His genius shone equally on the evil and on
the good, on the wise and the fooliSh, the monarch.and the beggar.
(Lectures on the English Poets, pp.
19Selected Prose of John Hamilton Reynolds, p. 59.
20
Letters, I, 186.
I. 368-369.
22Ibid., I, 387. For other letters that express similar ideas
about identities pressing upon him and annihilating him, see Letters, I,
392 and 395, II. 5 and )49.
23 '
Letters, II, 77.
24Keats , p. 285. 11urry goes on to point out that Keats's distinction
between poets and mere dreamers, made at the beginning of The Fall, is prob-
ably influenced by similar distinctions and questionings in The Excursion, III.
II. 2)4.
26
Keats, p. 283.
27
Letters, II, 79.
28
Ibid
,
II, 80.
29
Ibid
,
II,
79.
3
0
Ibid
,
II,
79.
.'
FOOTIDTES ro CIlAPI'ER IV
I, 184-185.
.. "
2.:rhe '"ind of John Kea ts, p. 64.
3John Keats, p. 240.
4John Keats's Anatomical and Physiological !lote p. 55.
II, 13.
6
Ibid., II, 18.
7Keats The Poet, p. 7.
8
Keats, pp. 31-33. Ga=od also states that "For lIordsllorth the
language of poetry is before all else the language of the senses. The
Lyrical Ballads are, as I have said, befera all else, a revindication in
poetry of the life of the senses. They are a crusade against the long
domination in poetry of the Reason. They have their origin in the convic-
tion that truth, truth in and for poetry, is given by the report of the
senses. Poetry begins in the free of ourselves to the impressions
of sense." (pp. 126-127).
9The Prelude. Book XII, 1. 377.
in -
-Wordsllorth describes the process in even greater detail in The
Prelude, Book II, 11. 265-275.
I. 185.
12:rb1d., I, 218.
13Ibid , II, 115.
14
Lyrical Ballads, 1798, p. 156.
1
5
Ib1d., p. 166. See also The Prelude, Book XIII, IIhere lIordsllorth
talks of "Emotion which best foresight need not fear. / llost IIorthy then
of trust when most intense." (11. 115-116).
16
The Keats Circle, II. 144.
I, 213.
-'
131
17 . )
.Quoted in R. D. Havens, The of a Poet (Baltimore, 1941 ,
r, 170.
1
9
Ibid., I, 192.
II, 19.
21Ibid., I, 403.
Mind of John Keats, p. 104.
23See above p. 21.
24 -
Letters, I, 143.
25rbid., II, 18.'
Criticism of William "PP' 146 152.
27Ibid., p. 160. Wordsworth's italics.
21\ ' .
-Wordsworth as Critic, pp. 183-184. See also Havens's comment
that, for liordsworth, "poetry of the higher kind [is that] in which 'life
and nature are described as operated upon by the creative or abstracting
virtue of the imagination'''- (The ,lind of a Poet, p. 209).
~ t t e r s - I, 184.
2rbid., I, 243.
3rbid., II, 213.
FOOTNOTES 'IO CHAPTER V
132
4 .
d. The Excursion" Book IV, ll. 987-992 for a similar attack on
analytical philosophers. Hazlitt drallS attention to this passage when
commenting on the passage in The Excursion that deals with the creation
of Greek myths: ,
The foregoing is one of a succession of &plendid passages equally
enriched with philosophy and poetry, tracing the fictions of
,Eastern mythology to the immediate intercourse of the imagira-
tion with Nature, and to the habitual propensity of the human
mind to emow the outwaJ:d forms of being with llie apd conscious
lIlotion. liith this eXp3.nsive and animating principle, 'Hr. Words-
worth has forcibly, but somewhat severely, contrasted the cold,
narrow, lifeless spiri t of 'modern philosophy.
("Observations on Mr. iiordsworth's Excursion" in The Round Table,
p. 115) .
~ t t e r s I, 162.
6Keats's dislike for Ne>rton was well known to his :friends as is
evidenced in Haydon's account of his "iJmortal dinner" at which both Keats
am liordsworth were present. Haydon writesl
He [Lamb] then, in a strain of humour beyond description, abused
me for putting Ne>rton's head into my picture -- "a fellow," said
he, "who believe:! nothing unless it was as clear as the three
sides of a triangle." And theh he and Keats agreed he had des-
troyed all the poetry of the rainbow, by reducing it to the
prismatic colours. It was impossible to resist him, and we all
drank "Newton's health, and confusion to mathematics." It was
delightful to see the good-humour of Wordsworth in giving in to
all our :frolics without affectation, and laughing asheart1ly
as the best of us.
(Quoted by Bate, John Keats, p. 270)
7These lines were probably influenced by Hazlitt, who, in Lectures
on the English Poets, states thatl
poetry is one p3.rt of the history of the human mind, though it
is neither science nor philosophy. It cannot be concealed, how-
ever, that the progress of knowledge and refinel:lent has a
tendency to circuJ!lscribe the limits of the imagination, and to
clip the wings of poetry. (p. 9)
I
133
8see, for example, G. R. "The Real Tragedy of Keats",
PMLA, XXXVI (1921), 315-331, and R. Do' Havens, "Unreconclled Opposites in
Keats"; Philological Quarterly, October 1935, pp. 289-300.
9Quoted in C. D. Thorpe, The of John Keats, p. 113. Thorpe
goes on to comment I, .
This is a doctrine to which Keats would have heartily subscribed.
For in this larger sense he was always an intuitionist. The
imaginative is the highest, the most generative, of all poetic
functions. Reason and knowledge are requisites, it is true, but
only as educators' of the imagination. They are but guides to
point the way. In the end the pupil far outruns the master.
(p. 113)
Thorpe's study of the growth of this 'philosophical' approach in Keats'!?
mind is, I think, the best to date. Other studies include the articles by
Elliott and Havens mentioned above as well as A. C. Bradley's "Keats and
'Philosophy'". in his A Hicellany (London, 1929). Amore recent study is
Jacob iligod's The Darkeni Chamber: The Growth of Tra c Consciousness
in Keats (Salsburg, 1972 All tQf these studies have exploded the old myth,
propounded by Garrod, that Keats is "the great poet he is only when the
senses capture him" (Keats, p. 62).
in.. '
-Letters, I, 271
. !lIbid., I, 274.
12
Ibid., I, 271.
13rbid., I, 279.
14
Ibid
I I, 184.
D. Havens, The Mind of a Poet, p. 129.
II, 81.
1
7
Ibid I, 168.
I I I )42.
19Ibid" I, 218-219. liuch later, when he was in Italy, Keats claimed
that the "information (primitive sense) necessary for a poem" is "the knOli-
ledge of ctmtrast , feeling for light and shade." (Letters. II, 360).
20
This unconventional image of the savage Robin may' have been
!
inf1.uenced by "ordsworth's poem "The Redbreast Chasing the Butterfly",
which also presents the Robin as a humter.
21
__ Keats and Wordsworth, pp. 102-104.
1)4
22:rt has .long been recognized that Keats's wording here is pro-
bably an echo of ilordsworth's "Prospectus" to The Recluse, which readsl
we look
Into our r11nd5, into the Mind of Man --
My haunt, and the main region of my song.
(ll.39-41)
23tetters, I, 278-279.
I,
25n,e influence of Tintern Abbey upon this letter has been pointed
out by E. de Selincourt in his edition of The Poems of John Keats and by
many other critics including. C. D. Thorpe, The mnd of John Keats, pp. 43-
47. These cri tics have also pointed out that "Sleep and Poetry" traces the
development through the same poetic stages and is also indebted to Tintern
Abbey for some of its ideas. As this comparison has been dealt with so
often, I .will not dwell on it here. M=e recently, J. Burke Severs has
rejected the claim that "Sleep aDi Poetry" follows the pattern of develop-
ment set up in !intern Abbey, but although his detailed argument raises
some good points, I still agree with earlier critics that. Keats's poel!lS
and letters are indebted to liordsworth's poem. See J. Burke Severs, "Keats's
'Mansion of l';any Apartrnents, , Sleep and Poetry, and Tintern Abbey", r:'odern
Language Quarterly, XX (June, 1959), 12e:132.
I, 281.
27Ibid., I, 277.
Mind of John Keats, p. 101.
)
\
135
!
FOOTIDTES TO CHAPl'ER VI
1
Perhaps Wordsworth's best discussion of the idea of "wise passive-
ness" outside of Lyrical Ballads is given in an early draft of a passage
for The Prelude, Book VII found in the Alfoxden Notebook. The passage readsl
There is a holy indolence
Compared to which our best activity
Is.oftimes deadly bane.
. They rest upon their oars
Float down the mighty stream of tendency
In the calm mood of holy indolence
A mqst wise passiveness in which the heart
Lies open and is well content to feel
As nature feels and to receive her shapes
As she has made them
The mountain's outlines and its steady forms
Gave simple grandeur to his lI!ind, nor less
The changeful language of its countenance
Gave I!!ovement to his thoughts and. multitude
(Quoted in The Pre:[ude, ed. E. de Selincourt, 2nd edit on rev. Helen Darbi-
\lith order and relation. f "
shire, Oxford, 1959, p. 566).
Keats, of course, could not have seen this passage. .,
2JOhn fiolloway, for example, says that "these poems collectively
make up a psychological document -- an unexpected one -- of unique interest",
and he goes on to interpret the Odes as "a complex and detailed poetic
revelation of what Keats knew himself as the creative mood." ,("The Odes of
Keats", in his The Charted n=or, London, 1960, pp. 40-41). Robert
Gittings also views the Odes as being ''bound together by a unity of form
and theme", but he goes on to state that "The order of the Odes does not
matter greatly; there is no progress of thought frail! one Ode to the other"
(John Keats, London, 1968,pp. 454-455), a statement to which I am totally
opposed. It should also be noted that when Gittings speaks of "the Odes"
he excludes "Psyc.he" which he claims in no way resembles the other Odes.
Kenneth Allott is one of the critics who insists thlt the Odes cannot be
viewed as a group. See his essay "The 'Ode to Psyche' .. , in K. Huir, ed.,
John Keatsl A Reassessment, pp. 75-95.
~ t t e r s II, 102. Robert Gittings suggests that the Odes can be
read in conjunction with the "soul_making" letter, but he does not deal
with the topic in detail. See John Keats, p. 455.
4
For a discussion of the dating of the Odes see Robert Gittings,
The Odes of Keats and their Earliest Known Manuscripts (Ohio, 1970), pp.
7-16.
~ t t e r s I, 185. Although this letter expressing Keats's views on
136
heaven was written over a year before the Odes, the idea of the heavenly
state as one in which our earthly sensations are repeated in a finer tone
was still in his mind at the time of the composition of the Odes as the
"Bright Star" sonnet shows. Although there'1s some controversy as to when
this sonnet was composed, most critics agree that it was some time between
February and July, 1819. Keats's ideas on the heavenly state are, I think,
important for our understanding of the Odes as Earl 'asserman has shown in
- -The Finer Tone (Baltimore, 1953).
6 \
J. Lempriere, A Classical Dictionary (London, n.d.), p. 510.
7"The Odes of Keats", p. 43.
8"The 'Ode to Psyche' n, p. 86. The suffering and seemingly hopeless
longing that Psyche has endured in her search for Cupid, although not
explicitly stated in the poem, is inherent in both the myth and the poem.
9Jack Stillinger, in his essay "Imaglnation and Reality in the
Odes", in his "The Hoodwink! " of "adeline" and Other Essa's on Keats's
Poems (Chicago, 1971 , claims that the Ode is an attempt to celebrate man's
myth-making capacity in order to preserve it against the age of Lockean
and Newtonian reason.
lOA similar situation is created in Keats's "Fancy", 11. 3'1-:;6.
11
Letters, II, 81.
12In Classical literature the nightingale
melancholy, and in Medieval literature with love.
13rt is not uncommon for a s o ~
of the singer's spirit.
is associated with
external manifestation
14 ' .
It has long since been recognized that the line "\/here youth
grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;" is a reference to Tom's death,
am Kenneth l':u1r points out that Keats associated Tom's illness with the
voice of the nightingale by means of a passage in King Lear. See "The
Meaning of the Odes", p. 68.
~ i s idea also crops up in "Lamia" where the beautiful illusion
created by Lamia begins to =ble when a trumpet. blast from outside sets
"a thought a-bUZZing in his [Lyc1us' s] head", he then begins to analyze
their situation.
~ e Consecrated Urn (London, 1959). p. 327.
137
17In the Star" sonnet "e also get this wish for death while
experiencing some ecstatic pleasure, in the belief that the pleasure will
continue eternally in after-life.
18 '
"The Odes of-Keats", pp. 46-47.
19The idea of a song as symbol of basic human emotions, which gives
it its un1 versal quality, also comes out strongly in Wordsworth's "The
Solitary Reaper". There, too, the song transcends both geography and his-
tory. This poem undoubtedly influenced Keats's Ode.
20 .
"Imagination and Reality in the Odes", pp. 99-119.
21
John Keats, pp. 464-465.
similarity between the poet's state at the beginning of the
poeUl and the question at the end is pointed out by Holloway, "The Odes of
Keats", p. 50.
ternt is first applied to this Ode by Kenneth Burke in his
essay "SymboliC Action in a Poem by Keats" in A Grammarof Motives (1945).
The ternt is adopted by j(asserman who on it at leIlo"i:h in The
Finer Tone. We do not need Burke or ilasse=n in order to understand this.
state, however, for it is amply articulated by Keats when he says, in his
letter of 21 December, 1817 to George and Tom, that "the excellence of
every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate,
froUl their being in close relationship with Beauty" &: Truth:' (Letters, I,
192).
24.asserman ClaiUlS that Keats was aware of the meaning of ecstasy
as "the passage of the soul out of the self" (The Finer Tone, p. 29),
which reinforces the idea of the poet projecting himself into the urn's
world.
25
John Keats, p. 467.
26
."The Odes of Keats", pp. 48-49.
27Here I have Used George Keatss transcript version of tne Ode _
probably the closest to the original - which implies that all of the last
two lines of the stanza are spoken by the urn.
It is unnecessary for me to say that the Beauty-Truth statement
made by the urn has been the source of much critical analysis and contro-
versy. I will just say that I disagree with those critics - ego Middleton
Murry and Allen Tate - who claim that this statement is out of place in
the context of the poem itself, and with those critics - ego Gleanth
138
Brooks - who clalm that th.e statement only has slgniflcance and meaning
rlthln the ci:ramatic context of the poem. The state:nent ls, I feel, lmpor-
tant both ln and out of the poem.
28
,John Keats, p. 520.
'. 29The lmage of melancholy as a cloud also appears in Keats's
journal letter of February-ray, 1819 to George and Georgianal "This is the
world -- thillj we cannot expect to give way many hours to pleasure -
Circumstances are like Clouds continually gatherlng and bursting -"
(Letters, II, 79).
3
0
The lmage of the rose also appears in the journal letter to
George and Georgiana: "The point at which }<,an may arrive is as far as the
paralel state in inanimate nature and no further - For lnstance suppose
a rose to have sensation, lt blooms on a beautiful morning it enjoys itseli
-- but there comes a cold rlnd, a hot sun -- lt cannot escape it, it cannot
destroy its annoyances they are as native to the world as itselil"
(Letters, Ii, 101).
John Keats, p. 461,
32wordsworth, too, enjoyed and valued moods of melanCholy as he
states ln The Prelude, Book VI, 11. 188-207.
II, 167.
)4
John Keats, p. 582.
35rbid., p. 582.
J6Ibid., p. Sill.
37"Keats and the Music of Autumn", in John KeatSI Odes, a Casebook,
p. 188.
3Baobert Gittings, The Odes of Keats and their Earliest Known
Manuscripts, p. 13.
. __ ._ .. _____ .,.._... ..... =_IJ .... ....... ---.. --,----.... - _____ . __
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