Thank you very much, Peter.

There is no need for the negative pun. I'd delete that.

So it closes with: These are moments when you transcend personality.

Thanks again,

From: P <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, February 8, 2013 3:29 AM
Subject: Re: Keats's Negative Capability and Eliot's Impersonality

I can go along with that. except for the negative pun.
P. M.

Chokh Raj <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

To quote from Four Quartets:

I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.

And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

The inner freedom from the practical desire,

The release from action and suffering, release from the inner

And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded

By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,

Erhebung without motion

Time past and time future

Allow but a little consciousness.

To be conscious is not to be in time

But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,

The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,

The moment in the draughty church at smokefall

Be remembered; involved with past and future.

Only through time time is conquered.

---

From: Chokh Raj <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, February 7, 2013 8:40 PM
Subject: Re: Keats's Negative Capability and Eliot's Impersonality

Thanks, Peter.

What has intrigued me all along is the state of mind at which Keats arrives at
in some of his odes -- in his Indolence ode, for instance, when he achieves
a state which is close to a transcendent mystical state, when Beauty, Fame, even
Poesy, hold no attraction. In the Nightingale ode too, he attains to a similar
transcendence. A state where there is no fear of death: "Now more than ever
seems it rich to die / To cease upon the midnight with no pain".

This state is analogous to Eliot's still point in Four Quartets where here and now
cease to matter: the moment in the rose garden, the moment in the smoky church.

These are moments when you transcend personality, when you are capable of
negating your self (to me a very positive capability).

CR

From: P <[log in to unmask]>;
To: <[log in to unmask]>;
Subject: Re: Keats's Negative Capability and Eliot's Impersonality
Sent: Thu, Feb 7, 2013 11:37:40 PM

Definitely a good idea ,CR
Some of the effects would seem to be similar.

Definitions are a goof place to start.
I don't think they match up very well.
K:Don't judge apparent contradictions
E:Don't insert your POV/Self.
P.

Chokh Raj <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Keats's Negative Capability and Eliot's Impersonality

One has yet to establish a strong link between these two concepts.

To me both are at heart profoundly mystical in nature.

I'd love to explore the subject in detail in the ensuing posts.

Any help in this regard will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,