Keats and Negative Capability

"Negative Capability" is one of those fuzzier concepts from Lit Topics. I know I read something about it, and it may have made sense at the time (or maybe it was one of those peculiar Romantic ideas), but I sure couldn't have explained it to you. But this morning I came across a discussion of it that I found interesting. And this post made it sympathetic, too.

Negative capability is being able to get your own highly important self out of the way and actually talk about whatever you're talking about. Shakespeare was very good at it: you may knock his plots,* but you really can't knock his characterization, at least not overall. His people seem to be real people, and there are such a lot of different people in his plays. They aren't all little Wills running around in different outfits. Keats thought this was a great example of negative capability. Shakespeare lets you see whatever he's portraying, and the playwright himself fades into the background.

In contrast, I would argue, Brian Jacques does not have much negative capability. I love Redwall, but he does tend to have the same characters in every book. (The same plot, too, but we won't go into that!) You have the brave mice, the earthy moles, the warlike badgers, and the evil rats and cats and stoats.

The article contrasts negative capability with propaganda. In that, the thing itself (the truth, the Universe As It Is) gets completely sunk underneath the interpretation.

I think that negative capability has a lot in common with the humility of acting. A good actor is able to get his own self out of the way and understand his character deeply enough to be that character. I talked about this quite a bit when I was directing Tempest. It's hard work, leaving behind your homework and your debate training and your personality long enough to turn into the King of Naples. It takes humility. But in order for the art to succeed, it's got to happen.


*Like Cymbeline. You can knock that plot as much as you like.