Author(s): Mehraj Hussain Para

Abstract: This article reinterprets John Keats’s concept of Negative Capability as an ethical as well as poetic response to epistemic uncertainty within Romantic poetics. Moving beyond readings that treat the concept as merely aesthetic tolerance for ambiguity, the study argues that Keats articulates a disciplined form of epistemological humility grounded in sustained openness to doubt, alterity, and experiential complexity. Drawing on moral philosophy, cognitive literary theory, and contemporary ethical discourse, the paper situates Keats’s letters and major odes as sites where poetic indeterminacy becomes an ethical practice of attentive engagement rather than evasive irresolution. Through close readings of Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Lamia, the analysis demonstrates how the suspension of premature certainty fosters imaginative responsibility and resists reductive modes of knowing. By positioning Negative Capability as an ethics of uncertainty, the article bridges Romantic literary studies with current debates in moral epistemology and the philosophy of literature, proposing Keatsian poetics as a continuing resource for thinking ethically within conditions of ambiguity.

Keywords: Negative Capability, Keatsian poetics, ethics of uncertainty, Romantic epistemology, moral imagination, poetic indeterminacy

Article Info: Received: 19 Mar 2026; Received in revised form: 18 Apr 2026; Accepted: 21 Apr 2026; Available online: 25 Apr 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.112.77