Keats and Scepticism

Description

In this original and important monograph, Li Ou presents compelling evidence that Keats in his letters and poems builds upon the ancient and Enlightenment tradition of scepticism. This chimes with his own habitual, equipollent' modes of thought, tempering his ardent' idealism and sensuousness with intellectual doubts and vexing speculations'. A deeply researched and enjoyably accessible new study of Keats, strikingly original in its perspectives on the poet's intellectual affinity with the sceptical tradition in philosophy. The argument is complemented by fresh and insightful readings of the poetry and underpinned by persuasive reflection on the presence of philosophical scepticism in Keats's Romantic milieu. This book changes the terms of reference for our understanding of Keats as a thinker. Keats and Scepticism explores Keats's affinity with the philosophical tradition of scepticism and reads Keats's poetry anew in light of this affinity. It suggests Keats's links with the origin of scepticism in ancient Greece as recorded in Sextus Empiricus's Outlines of Scepticism. It also discusses Keats's connections with Montaigne, the most important Renaissance inheritor of Pyrrhonian scepticism; Voltaire, the Enlightenment philosophe whose sceptical ideas made an indelible impact on Keats; and Hume, the most thoroughgoing sceptic after antiquity. Other than Keats's affinitive ideas with these sceptical thinkers, this book is particularly interested in Keats's experiments with peculiar language, forms, modes, and genres of poetry to convey the non-dogmatic philosophy. In this light, it re-reads Isabella, La Belle Dame sans Merci', the 1819 odes, the two Hyperions, King Stephen, and Lamia, all of which reveal Keats's self-reflexive and radical sceptical poetics in challenging poetic dogmas and conventions. This book is for Keats lovers, students, teachers, scholars, or non-academic readers who are interested in Romanticism, nineteenth-century studies, or poetry and philosophy in general. The original, accessible interdisciplinary study aims to offer the reader a fresh perspective to read Keats and appreciate the quintessential Keatsian poetics.