CUHK electronic theses & dissertations collection

This thesis focuses on John Keats's most important aesthetic idea, negative capability, and by studying the history of this idea, argues that a non-egotistic poetic tradition can be found in English poetry, which can be traced back to Shakespeare and was taken over by Keats, and through Keats, carried on to the modernist poets. The introduction gives an anatomy of negative capability by looking at Keats's various references to it and summing up its key elements and their interconnections. It also provides a critical heritage of the concept and gives a review of the state of knowledge. Chapter one studies the genealogy of negative capability, focusing on Hazlitt and Shakespeare as the most important contemporary and historical influences on the formation of the idea. It first looks at those of Hazlitt's aesthetic, philosophical and poetic views that made the most significant impact on Keats, and then gives an account of Keats's reading of and reflections on Shakespeare, defining King Lear as the most important play in giving rise to his idea of negative capability. Chapter two gives a close reading of King Lear, exploring what in the play exemplifies negative capability, and how in turn the play illuminates the idea. Keats's reading is also discussed in the context of the Neoclassic and Romantic receptions of the play. Chapter three studies Keats's own poetry in the light of negative capability, giving a narrative of the evolution of the idea in Keats's poetic practice by following the chronology of Keats's poetry, concentrating on "Sleep and Poetry", Endymion, Hyperion and his key achievements in the Great Year of 1819. Chapter four explores the legacy of negative capability by focusing on Yeats's and Eliot's respective inheritance of the idea, suggesting that negative capability is deeply embedded in a much wider cultural and intellectual tradition. The thesis concludes that negative capability is an important part of both the creative and critical heritage, and ultimately, it is a way of being, conveying an attitude towards human experience.Li Ou."July 2007."Adviser: David Parker.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-01, Section: A, page: 0224.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-285).Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.Abstracts in English and Chinese.School code: 1307