Negative Capability: The Intuitive Approach in Keats

by Walter Jackson Bate

Intense, concrete imagery drives Keats’s poetry, turning perception into living truth.

This nonfiction examination uncovers how Keats fused sense and body to shape vivid, tactile poetry. It traces a path from “negative capability” to a concrete vision that grounds every image in touch, scent, sight, and sound, keeping emotion tightly linked to what is truly felt.

Discover how intensity sits inside the concrete, guiding word choice and revision.See concrete details rewritten to sharpen perception, from underlined passages to vivid epithets.Explore how Keats blends senses to produce a unified, immersive image.Learn why tactile imagery strengthens meaning and brings poems to life. Ideal for readers of Romantic poetry and literary criticism who want a clear map of Keats’s craft and the science behind his vivid verisimilitude.

102 pages, Hardcover

Published August 24, 2018

About the author

Literary critic Walter Jackson Bate twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, first for his work on the Romantic poet John Keats, and later for that on lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson.