Teacher’s Corner – Negative Capability

It was January 7th, 2019, when I first learned about negative capability. The setting was the second floor of the Biscayne campus at FIU, where Professor John Dufresne introduced the term in class. We learned that negative capability is the ability to remain in uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

Those words come directly from John Keats, who coined the term in a personal letter. Though mentioned only briefly, negative capability has since come to represent what is arguably one of the most important skills a writer can possess.

At its core, negative capability asks the writer to allow words and characters to exist without forcing them into categories of meaning. Do not label. Do not impose. Do not imbue. Write for what is, rather than what must be explained. The strongest narratives allow characters and environments to speak for themselves, without revealing the author’s judgment.

This approach reflects the distinction between the objective and the subjective. In life, there are verifiable facts, and then there is how we interpret them. Negative capability asks the writer to trust the reader with that interpretation. These are the works that endure. In the same letter in which Keats defines the term, he points to Shakespeare as its greatest example—praising his ability to suspend judgment and withhold meaning.

That ability is especially evident in Macbeth. The question of free will and determinism is present throughout. Macbeth’s desire for power is at once understandable, seductive, and destructive, yet the audience is never instructed how to feel about him. We are shown his thoughts, his doubts, and his unraveling. The witches’ prophecies arrive without moral framing, leaving us to question whether they create Macbeth’s ambition or merely reveal what already exists within him. Shakespeare resists explanation, forcing the audience to remain in uncertainty, precisely the state Keats later defines as negative capability.

Admittedly, the term itself is vague and open to interpretation. Yet its value becomes clear when it appears beyond literature. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has spoken about the importance of holding complexity and ambiguity without rushing to judgment. His approach echoes Keats’s philosophy, applying negative capability not to poetry, but to history. By resisting simple narratives of heroes and villains, Burns allows nuance to emerge.

We often seek easily digestible stories to make sense of the world. Nuance is more difficult, but it is also more honest. What began as a term defined in a classroom has come to suggest that the endurance of great writing may lie less in its answers than in its restraint.

(Professor John Dufresne still teaches at FIU and recently published a novel titled My Darling Boy. More information about his work can be found at johndufresne.net)

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