'Negative Capability'
The poet John Keats writes: "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..." (Letter to his brother, 12/21/1817) In a Letter to Reynolds, 5/3/1818, Keats speaks of stepping into the "Thoughtless Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think." This could mean nothing else but Samadhi, the deepest meditation. Keats uses nearly Buddhist language to describe the cr eative state of anatta : no-self. In a letter to Richard Woodhouse, 10/27/1818, he writes : "As to the Poetic Character itself... it is not itself - it has no self - it is everything and nothing... A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence, because he has no Identity - he is continually in and ...