Keats’s Negative Capability: Parallel Concepts in Derrida’s Theory of Deconstruction
Keywords:
Negative Capability, Deconstruction, Derrida, KeatsAbstract
Among the romantics, Keats due to his anti-dogmatic stand approximates postmodernism.
Postmodernism denies theological signification to a text and prefers a sceptic stand towards all
the established conventions and hierarchies. Keats too in his letters dealing with the negative
capability and poetical character denies certainties and fixities by preferring to be in a state of
half-knowledge. According to him, a poet should be equally receptive to contradictory
experiences without siding with any one of them. It is through participation in opposites that a
poet can sharpen his sensibility and save himself from becoming an egotist. This opposition of
preconceived ideas, stressing on doubts and mysteries, participation in all types of experience
and negation of identity to self brings negative capability close to deconstruction. The paper
attempts to discuss the theories of Negative Capability and Deconstruction in detail and explores
if any affinities exist between the two.
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