#the past couple years have rightfully dragged the term empathy through the dirt but i do sometimes wonder about this passage | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lesamis · 2 years ago

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If a face, as Johann Gottfried Herder says, is nothing more than a Spiegelkammer of the spirit, then we should be a little frightened of Keats's variety of expressions. [...] Keats is unable to contemplate himself. His gift is not knowing how to reconcile himself. The identity of a person who is in the room with him presses in and cancels his own out in a flash. When Keats speaks, he's not sure he's the one talking.

"John Keats", in These Possible Lives, Fleur Jaeggy

#happy two-hundred-and-second anniversary of keats's death all #the past couple years have rightfully dragged the term empathy through the dirt but i do sometimes wonder about this passage #''the identity of every one in the room begins so to press upon me that I am in a very little time annihilated''#and about how much of how incredibly loved keats was by his friends and equally how angry he was #might have been at the crux of this thing. the giving others so much room that you lose substance of your own #which makes you a kind and loving friend and a brilliant poet but also makes you hard to know #and not being known by those who love you the most. that way lies despair #and bitterness too #anyway when i was digging out my copy of these possible lives an old boarding pass from december 2018 fell out #london southend to cologne bonn. i was 23 and going home for christmas and insanely joyful all the time. christ #keats

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