Vision or Dream, or Something Between: Uncertain Knowing and Liminal Consciousness in John Keats’ Poetry
Abstract
Romantic poetry frequently explores the fluid boundary between perception and imagination; moreover, John Keats’ Poetry is especially marked by moments in which vision and dream seem to merge. Consequently, his speakers often inhabit a liminal state of consciousness where knowledge remains ambiguous and unresolved, and therefore this study examines how Keats represents such in-between states of awareness and how they produce uncertain knowing. The study aims, firstly, to analyze how Keats constructs liminal states between waking perception and dream-vision in selected poems, thereby highlighting experiences of epistemological ambiguity; secondly, it seeks to interpret how these liminal states embody Keats’s philosophy of negative capability and furthermore reveal his acceptance of doubt and suspended meaning. A qualitative, constructivist approach is adopted; moreover, close textual reading and thematic analysis are employed to examine Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, La Belle Dame sans Merci, and The Eve of St. Agnes. Besides this, interpretive literary criticism is used to explore how imagery, symbolism, tone, and language construct liminal consciousness. The findings indicate that Keats consistently represents consciousness as an unstable threshold between waking reality and dream-vision; consequently, his speakers are repeatedly suspended between perception and imagination. Furthermore, these liminal states refuse final resolution, thereby embodying negative capability as a meaningful acceptance of ambiguity. The study concludes that Keats’s poetry inhabits the space between certainty and doubt, dream and waking, presence and absence; otherwise, if certainty were imposed, the imaginative atmosphere and philosophical richness would diminish. Finally, it is recommended that future research examine Keats’s liminal consciousness in relation to wider Romantic and post-Romantic thought; furthermore, interdisciplinary dialogue with psychology and philosophy may deepen understandings of dream-states and uncertain knowing.
Keywords: Liminal consciousness, Negative capability, Uncertain knowing, Romantic poetry, John Keats, Dream-vision.
