carlton smith

In 1817, the poet John Keats wrote a letter to his brothers to share this exciting realization. “At once it struck me,” Keats wrote, “what quality went to form a Man of Achievement … Negative Capability.” Keats explains that “Negative Capability” is “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching... See more

The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all.

This slipping-away of knowledge is always happening. It happens in our minds, as memories fade. But arguably, we don’t need to retain all knowledge.