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John Keats „several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously – I mean Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason – Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge” Why is this concept useful for psychoanalytic theory?
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JESSICA BENJAMIN, THE
BONDS OF LOVE
THESIS
„Domination and submission result from a breakdown ot the necessary tension between self-assertion and mutual recognition that allows self and other to meet as sovereign equals” (12).
NEGATIVECAPABILITY John Keats
„several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously – I mean Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason – Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge”
Why is this concept useful for psychoanalytic theory?
M.C. ESCHER, REGULAR DIVISION OF THE PLANE WITH BIRDS (1949)
HEGEL, THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT (1807)
The self’s wish for absolute independenceclashes with the self’s need for recognition Necessary tension
„Mutual recognition cannot be achieved through obedience with the other’s power, or through repression. It requires, finally, contact with the other” (40).
Open space, transitional experience
„ON THE SEASHORE”BY RABINDRANATH TAGOREOn the seashore of endless worlds children meet.The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.
