I have a lifelong love for John Keats, the greatest of the English Romantic poets who lived during the nineteenth century. His uncanny ability to create beauty with words touched my soul. I was still quite young when I read the letter Keats sent to his brother in 1817. In it, he wrote about "negative capability," which he explained as the quality "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." I was drawn to this idea because so much of what I experienced as a kid, teen, and young man seemed shrouded in mystery.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I have a lifelong love for John Keats, the greatest of the English Romantic poets who lived during the nineteenth century. His uncanny ability to create beauty with words touched my soul. I was still quite young when I read the letter Keats sent to his brother in 1817. In it, he wrote about "negative capability," which he explained as the quality "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." I was drawn to this idea because so much of what I experienced as a kid, teen, and young man seemed shrouded in mystery." in the context of "Cornel West Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, A Memoir (2009)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.