indices into the midst of the whole pro and con, about genius, and views and
atchievements and ambition and coetera. 1st As to the poetical Character
itself, (I mean that sort of which, if I am any thing, I am a Member; that sort
distinguished from the wordsworthian or egotistical sublime; which is a thing
per se and stands alone) it is not itself?it has no self?it is every thing and
nothing?It has no character?it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto,3 be
it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated?It has as much
delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen.4 What shocks the virtuous phi
losopher, delights the camelion5 Poet. It does no harm from its relish of the
dark side ol things any more than from its taste for the bright one; because
they both end in speculation.6 A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in
ing in the front of men's breeches. In Milton's and letters. masque the chastity of a young lady is put to the 2. 'The irritable race,' a phrase Horace had proof by the evil enchanter Comus. applied to poets (Epistles 2.2.102).
2. An open place northwest of the walls of the City 3. Hazlitt had defined gusto in his 1816 essay as of London where, in the 16th century, heretics 'power or passion' (p. 538). were burned. 4. Iago is the villain in Shakespeare's Othello and 3. Later on. Imogen the virtuous heroine in his Cymheline. 4. Keats's younger brother, then eighteen, who 5. The chameleon is a lizard that camouflages was dying of tuberculosis. itself by changing its color to match its surround1. A young lawyer wilh literary interests who early ings. recognized Keats's talents and prepared, or pre-6. I.e., without affecting our practical judgment or served, manuscript copies of many of his poems actions. Cf. Keats's discussion of the poet of
.
94 8 / JOHN KEATS
existence; because he has no Identity?he is continually in for7?and filling
some other Body?The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women who
are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable
attribute?the poet has none; no identity?he is certainly the most unpoetical
of all God's Creatures. If then he has no self, and if I am a Poet, where is the
Wonder that I should say I would write no more? Might I not at that very
instant [have] been cogitating on the Characters of saturn and Ops?8 It is a
wretched thing to confess; but is a very fact that not one word I ever utter can
be taken for granted as an opinion growing out of my identical nature?how
can it, when I have no nature? When I am in a room with People if I ever am
free from speculating on creations of my own brain, then not myself goes home
to myself: but the identity of every one in the room begins to to press upon
me9 that, I am in a very little time an[ni]hilated?not only among Men; it
would be the same in a Nursery of children: I know not whether I make myself
wholly understood: I hope enough so to let you see that no dependence is to
be placed on what I said that day. In the second place I will speak of my views, and of the life I purpose to
myself?I am ambitious of doing the world some good: if I should be spared
that may be the work of maturer years?-in the interval I will assay to reach to
as high a summit in Poetry as the nerve bestowed upon me will suffer. The
faint conceptions I have of Poems to come brings the blood frequently into
my forehead?All I hope is that I may not lose all interest in human affairs?
that the solitary indifference I feel for applause even from the finest Spirits,
will not blunt any acuteness of vision I may have. I do not think it will?I feel
assured I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the
Beautiful even if my night's labours should be burnt every morning and no
eye ever shine upon them. But even now I am perhaps not speaking from
myself; but from some character in whose soul I now live. I am sure however
that this next sentence is from myself. I feel your anxiety, good opinion and
friendliness in the highest degree, and am Your's most sincerely
John Keats
