Poems
His first poetry collection, published in 1817.
John Keats
English Romantic poet
Explore this tradition and related voices →Keats describes poetic imagination: remaining receptive to mystery without impatiently forcing an explanation. He is discussing literary achievement, not rejecting facts or reason.
The person behind the ideas
John Keats was an English Romantic poet whose brief life ended in 1821. His poems and letters explore beauty, imagination, mortality, and the limits of understanding. His idea of negative capability describes remaining receptive to uncertainty in poetic creation.
Biography sources
Biography reference →At a glance
- Born
- 1795
- Died
- 1821
- Birthplace
- London, England
- Notable works
- Poems · Endymion · Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems
- Tradition
- English Romantic poet
Ideas and outlook
Keats’s poetry brings sensuous beauty into contact with loss and mortality. His letters consider imagination and the capacity to remain receptive to uncertainty, which he calls negative capability.
About the works
Endymion
A long mythological verse romance, published in 1818.
Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems
Published in 1820; includes several major odes and the unfinished Hyperion.
Life milestones
- 1816
Qualifies as an apothecary and turns toward a literary career.
- 1817
Publishes his first poetry collection.
- 1821
Dies in Rome, where he had traveled in search of a climate that might help his health.
From this voice
A thought in the atlas
“…being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”
Letter to George and Tom Keats · December 1817 · 1848 printing
UncertaintyOther quotes across journeys
Uncertainty · Standalone card
Keats describes poetic imagination: remaining receptive to mystery without impatiently forcing an explanation. He is discussing literary achievement, not rejecting facts or reason.
Our reflection applies this idea to personal change; that is an editorial response, not the original subject of the letter.
Read the original source →