Shiftiness in Keats's ‘Ode on Indolence’

Abstract

This essay identifies a kind of shiftiness at work in Keats's ‘Ode on Indolence’. Apparent both in the poem's depiction of indolence as a wavering between mind states, and in its wordplay, ambiguity and structural instability, this shifty quality presents an unsettling, more mischievous side of Negative Capability. This quality may account, too, for the peculiar textual instability of the ode, which has seen the order of its stanzas variously rearranged by critics and editors over the course of its bibliographical history. The essay concludes by considering the indolence of the poem's title in relation to a pun contained in its epigraph, which raises questions about what drives poetic creativity and considers the distinction between the labour of professional authorship versus ideas about inspiration and organic composition.