Negative Capability: What It Is and How to Access It

What is “negative capability”? In brief, when we as writers or artists are able to allow complexities and uncertainties in our work—without trying to resolve them—we are expressing negative capability. This phrase, famously associated with the poet John Keats (and Keats’s own admiration for William Shakespeare), can unlock for writers new ways of thinking about our writing process.

Negative capability cannot be divorced from its context: Keats was a poet of the Romantic Era, a movement emphasizing beauty, truth, and powerful emotionality. Nonetheless, poets and writers today can benefit from knowing this term d’arte and the potential it carries for our work.

What is negative capability, and how do we access it? Let’s uncover the surprising wisdom of this confusingly-named phrase.

Negative Capability Definition

Negative capability describes a state of mind in which the writer or artist, in their pursuit of beauty, truth, or “the sublime,” embraces uncertainty, complexity, contradiction, or mystery in that pursuit. The writer does this without jumping to conclusions or trying to explain the mystery. In doing so, the writer achieves a greater representation of the truth by embracing a more full reality—which is, itself, complex and often mysterious.

Put a simpler way: negative capability is the writer’s embrace of what doesn’t make sense to, paradoxically, make sense of the world.

Negative capability is the writer’s embrace of what doesn’t make sense to, paradoxically, make sense of the world.

If you’ve been writing or creating art for any amount of time, then you might know what Keats is referring to. You’re working on something and its themes get tangled, its symbols and images hard to define, the “message” of the work feels lost in the details. In this instance, your instinct might be to go back and revise what isn’t yet finished, to find the “point” of the work before you finish pursuing it.

Negative capability, then, is your license not to do that. The idea that any piece of art has to have a stated “purpose” or “message” on the part of the artist is vastly untrue (and something the Romantics would have roundly rejected). What’s more, embracing that uncertainty and complexity might lead you towards better work—work that is more full-throated, complicated, true-to-life, and manages to make sense of the nonsensical all on its own accord.

Negative capability is both a state of mind and a practice. We’ll look at tips for accessing it later in this article, but first, let’s understand this concept better by contextualizing its source. For example, who was John Keats?

Negative capability is both a state of mind and a practice.

John Keats and Negative Capability

Keats was a poet of the early 19th century who was surprisingly prolific despite his rather short life. (Keats died from tuberculosis at age 25.) Like other Romantic Poets, Keats was preoccupied with questions of emotionality, the human spirit, truth, and beauty. The latter two concepts are famously referenced in Keats’ poem Ode on a Grecian Urn: “beauty is truth, truth beauty.”

Keats espoused his idea of negative capability in a letter to his brothers when he was 21. He writes:

I had not a dispute but a disquisition, with Dilke on various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously — I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason — Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

Hopefully this offers a little bit of clarity into the odd name for this concept. It’s a capability for the negative—which, here, means those uncertainties, mysteries, the absence (or negation) of any seeming logic.

Who Were The Romantic Poets?

The Romantic Poets were members of what we now call the Romantic Era, an artistic, cultural, and aesthetic movement that began at the end of the 18th century and dominated common thought in the first half of the 1800s. Romanticism rejected many of the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, an era associated with an emphasis on science, rationality, secularism, and that which is measurably true.

Thus, the Romantics were concerned with ideals such as (but not limited to):

• Beauty, particularly the idea that beauty provides purpose and meaning to life itself.
• Truth, including truths which are paradoxical, hard to access, or only accessible through beauty and the supernatural.
• The supernatural, including both religious and occult ideas.
• The sublime, which is the experience of feelings and thoughts that are so large, they transport us beyond ourselves and our lived experiences.
• Nature, which is often a source of beauty and truth (as well as a manifestation of God).
• Large emotionality, with an emphasis on the truth in subjective experience.
• A rejection of logic and rationality as the sole vehicles towards what is true and real.

These emphases, particularly on emotionality and personal experience, still influence the art and literature of the 21st century. It is no surprise, then, that negative capability remains a powerful ideal for writers to aspire towards.

How to Reach Negative Capability

Negative capability helps writers embrace the full mystery, complexity, and vision of our work. But how do you actually enter that headspace?

The diligent writer can reach negative capability with practice and an open mindset. Here are five tips for achieving Keats’ vision.

1. Mindfulness

Above all, negative capability is a skill of focus and mindfulness. The tools of meditation can be quite useful here. When we stills our minds and accepts what arises inside it, we can pay closer attention to the words that need to be written.

For Keats, the opposite of negative capability was “irritable reaching after fact and reason.” Meditation and mindfulness reduce our minds’ irritabilities and graspingness in general. 

I’m no expert on meditation and mindfulness, but luckily, our instructor Marc Olmsted has some thoughts on mindful writing here:

https://writers.com/mindful-writing

2. Identify Unhelpful Thoughts

One helpful technique in meditation that’s worth highlighting is “labeling,” which is simply when you notice your thoughts drifting and label those thoughts as such. That practice can be adapted to the process of writing with negative capability. When you find yourself thinking unhelpful thoughts, labeling them as such will help you shift the mindset you write with.

What are those unhelpful thoughts? Anything that distracts you from that goal of embracing mystery. For example:

• What does this mean?
• What am I trying to say?
• Does that make sense?
• Have I said this before?
• Has someone else already said this?
• Am I making things too complicated?

To be clear, some of these thoughts and questions may be useful when you start revising and editing. But, when you’re drafting, don’t let those thoughts pull you away from what’s possible in the work.

3. Avoid Self-Judgment

Negative capability is easier to achieve with a certain lack of self-judgment. The less you pay attention to yourself (and, therefore, your “merits” as a writer), the more you can fully invest yourself into what you’re writing.

As such, it’s important not to judge your work as you’re writing it, and to not get in your own way as a writer. This is possible even when you’re writing about yourself. I’ve found that, in a mindset of negative capability, I can channel my thoughts and emotions into my work while doing so from an abstracted, objective space.

You might also take a cue from the writer Anne Lamott, who writes in Bird by Bird that writers should strive to write a shitty first draft.

4. Follow Your Whims and Intuitions

Writers sometimes can’t explain why we made certain decisions in our work. When in a space of negative capability, we might follow the whims and intuitions that arise from our unconscious mind.

If you find yourself suddenly going in a different direction in your work, let yourself explore that direction. Make decisions that you can’t necessarily explain, whether it’s in your choice of a single word or in the sudden introduction of major plot elements. In revision, you might disagree with those decisions, but you might also open yourself up to insight you wouldn’t have otherwise gained.

Richard Hugo has useful advice here as well. While his writing is for poets, writers of all backgrounds can benefit from his idea of the “initiating” and “generated” subjects. A writer will sit down to write on one thing (the initiating subject), but end up writing about something completely different (the generated subject). Knowing this should empower you to follow your mind where it goes, because there are no “wrong” decisions, especially not in first drafts.

You can learn more about the “initiating” and “generated” subjects here:

https://writers.com/feature/on-starting-a-poem

5. Be Humble, Be Curious, and Embrace What You Don’t Know

Above all, the writer that achieves negative capability knows that they know nothing. This goes hand-in-hand with taking down your ego: to embrace mystery and complexity, you have to accept that you don’t know everything about the subject you are writing on.

Writing is an act of discovery. If you already know what you’re going to say, you won’t end up saying anything new or surprising for your reader. Keep an open mind and treat writing as a learning process. Embrace your curiosity and openness to new ideas. You will find that your initiating subject is just the tip of a deep, complex iceberg.

Hone Your Negative Capability at Writers.com

Whether you’re looking for a mindful writing experience or prompts to get you going, the classes at Writers.com will help support your journey through negative capability. Check out our upcoming online writing classes here.