John Keats
Sep 16, 2026 · 59 min · 9 segments
John Keats, a name that resonates through the corridors of poetry, is the focal point of this episode of The Poetic Turn. Co-hosts Darren Stephens and Evan Carlson welcome Keats scholars, Brian Rejack…
Sep 16, 2026 · 59 min · 9 segments
John Keats, a name that resonates through the corridors of poetry, is the focal point of this episode of The Poetic Turn. Co-hosts Darren Stephens and Evan Carlson welcome Keats scholars, Brian Rejack…
In a letter in late December, Keats is writing to his brothers about what's kind of going on, and he talks about how he was coming back from some of the Christmas pantomimes with his friends Charles Dilk and Charles Brown, and he was having not a dispute but a disquisition.
kind of those hairline distinctions there, a disquisition with his friend Dilk about what it took to make a man of genius, and especially in literature, especially like Shakespeare.
And then Keats says, essentially, like, and suddenly a number of things dovetailed in my mind, and it came to me.
That is negative capability when a man is capable of dwelling in mysteries, doubts, and uncertainties without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
That is when a man is capable of dwelling in mysteries, doubts, and uncertainties without without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
So Dilk was a good friend of his, but Dilk, he talks in some of his, Keats talks in some of his letters elsewhere about how Dilk is a Godwin perfectibility man.
It needs to have it kind of laid out, and then you follow through on that plan.
And Keats is trying to – so one of the background figures as well for Keats' thinking at this time is a tremendous essay writer and thinker named William Hazlitt.
And Hazlitt has been doing some thinking about genius, the nature of genius, and thinking Hazlitt talks about how most often what happens with genius is that genius puts its stamp on things, right? That it is about the projection of an ego to then shape things.
And in a previous letter earlier on, Keats had written about, am I right, Bri, that is the egotistical sublime earlier than negative capability?
In a letter in late December, Keats is writing to his brothers about what's kind of going on, and he talks about how he was coming back from some of the Christmas pantomimes with his friends Charles Dilk and Charles Brown, and he was having not a dispute but a disquisition.
kind of those hairline distinctions there, a disquisition with his friend Dilk about what it took to make a man of genius, and especially in literature, especially like Shakespeare.
And then Keats says, essentially, like, and suddenly a number of things dovetailed in my mind, and it came to me.
That is negative capability when a man is capable of dwelling in mysteries, doubts, and uncertainties without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
That is when a man is capable of dwelling in mysteries, doubts, and uncertainties without without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
So Dilk was a good friend of his, but Dilk, he talks in some of his, Keats talks in some of his letters elsewhere about how Dilk is a Godwin perfectibility man.
It needs to have it kind of laid out, and then you follow through on that plan.
And Keats is trying to – so one of the background figures as well for Keats' thinking at this time is a tremendous essay writer and thinker named William Hazlitt.
And Hazlitt has been doing some thinking about genius, the nature of genius, and thinking Hazlitt talks about how most often what happens with genius is that genius puts its stamp on things, right? That it is about the projection of an ego to then shape things.
And in a previous letter earlier on, Keats had written about, am I right, Bri, that is the egotistical sublime earlier than negative capability?
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