Recritiquing John Keats

Re-critiquing John Keats is a compilation of studied research papers and articles on John Keats that cover almost all the seminal aspects of his poetry. The book underlines the need of a comparative approach to holistically interpret John Keats and to explain the poet as a specific mode of communication (Sanchiran). In fact, there are a number of ideas that Keats develops in his poetry, which the present generation is perhaps far better prepared and equipped to understand than was his own. Most of his ideas like the concept of ‘negative capability’ — (nakaritmak simarthya) lead to the freeing of the human mind from the fetters of bigotry and ideology through a quite different and superior use of the intellectual faculties. Today, in this era of rediscovery, rethinking and revaluation, there is emerging a mind-set that would be able to appreciate better some of the deeper aspects of philosophical thought in Keats’s poetry. In these post-colonial times (uttar-upniveshi kil) where we invariably talk of new insights (naveen antardrishtiya) a fresh reading of John Keats applying Indian critical theories along with the contemporary western literary theories becomes not only essential but academically challenging as well. Quintessentially, the book is an effort to fuse assorted theoretical perspectives in a single treatise on a singular poet.