Abstract
Western philosophy and literary criticism have remained
divided over the relevance and primacy of the ethical and the aesthetic
approaches to art. The debate was started by Plato who in his various
dialogues, particularly in The Republic, found poetry aesthetically
pleasing but morally questionable. However, Kant’s philosophy is the
more direct source of contemporary debates about ethical and aesthetic
approaches to art and literature. Kant’s three critiques arguably
divided human knowledge and experience into the threefold division of
the true, the good, and the beautiful, thereby creating a separate sphere
for art but also isolating it from questions of truth and morality.
Philosophers and literary critics have tried to close the gap opened up
by Kant’s critiques between the three spheres of human knowledge and
experience but no convincing response has been given, though there
have been some very illuminating discussions of this problematic
division. Participating in the debates concerning the ethical and
aesthetic approaches to literature and without claiming to provide a
solution to the problem, this paper nevertheless identifies in the poetry
and letters of John Keats, particularly his concept of Negative
Capability, a possibility of finding an answer to this question. Beginning
with the philosophical and critical background to the contemporary
approaches to art and literature, the paper first takes note of the
‘ethical turn’ and a ‘return of aesthetics’ in contemporary art and
literary criticism. Discussing the conflict between ethics and aesthetics
in Keats’s poetry, it then refers to the work of Derek Attridge and his
concept of the ‘singularity’ of literature to discuss Keats’s concept of
‘Negative Capability’ and makes the claim that this concept, when
approached through deconstructive literary theory as elaborated by
Derek Attridge, suggests a way out of this age old conflict.
Dr. Faisal Nazir, Lubna Hasan. (2019) Art for Heart’s Sake: Ethics and Aesthetics in the Poetry of John Keats, Journal of Research ( Humanities), Vol LV, Issue 1.
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