Negative Capability in Selected Poems by John Keats and Muhammad Abdulmu’ti Alhamshari: a Comparative Study

Abstract

This study explores the connection between poetry and nature in an attempt to show that nature is a source of literary creativity that could help the receiver towards achieving self- realization, and it could also increase ecological awareness. Both John Keats (1795- 1821) and M. A. Alhamshari (1908- 1938)felt a responsibility towards humanity, and so they referred to the role of art in helping to relieve the pain of humanity in their poems: they did not use “the wings of Poesy” to escape the harsh mundane reality, but to reach out to a different level of reality that could help in accepting this pain as a beginning to a more ‘beautiful stage’.Through an eco-critical reading as well as a use of Jungian archetypal analysis, the study compares selected poems of both Romantic poets in order to underline their unique poetic visions and techniques that characterize their poems with the quality of Negative Capability. In chapter one the study defines Negative Capability, shows the explanations of various critics to it as well as the similarity of the concept to the views of some Arab critics. It also relates it to its philosophical and psychological root as well as to the concept of Ecopsychology.