...magnanimous than, Keats's equally famous idea of 'the chamelion poet': 'the poetical Character ... is not itself — it has no self — it is every thing and nothing— It has no character A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity — he is continually...

...deep history, with the most changing and evanescent of identities. A famous passage from his letters: "As to the poetical Character itself, (I mean that sort of which, if I am any thing, I am a Member . . . ) it is not itself — it has no self — it is everything and nothing...

...perpetual flux, which Keats realized was, from a metaphysical point of view, no identity at all (". . . it is not itself — it has no self, — it is every thing and nothing" [Letters 27 October 1818]). Resisting metaphysics in favor of metaphor, Keats affirms the flow when...

...returning to Shakespeare as an exemplar of this "poetical Character," Keats writes of that character that "it is not itself — it has no self — it is every thing and nothing — It has no character" (226-27). For Keats, this "negative capability" signifies a capacity to suspend especially the foundational...

...holiday-keeping front one — . . . I live in the eye; and my imagination, surpassed, is at rest . . . 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...