On John Keats
With Keats being one of the first lyricists to introduce the idea of art as independent from any elitist expectations, he establishes it as a substitute for religion, eventually sowing the seed for a l'art pour l'art notion liberated of any defining metric.
The fact that he was suffering from tuberculosis (he died before his 27th birthday), has probably lead to an extreme and existential approach to life in general and thus to literature in particular. In his eyes the writer, equipped with the gift of "negative capability", does not only adapt to his outer circumstances whatever they be, but unlike the scientist, he is also able to endure any given contradictions with patience. He is stepping back from his own ego for the sake of divine art. As we can see in "On first Looking into Chapman's Homer", or "Ode an a Grecian Urn", the ultimate function of art is the timelessness and beauty emanating from it, which in his eyes equals truth and vice versa.
