Indolence, it would seem, is, in John Keats's life, a paradox. Both muse and reason for guilt. Both negative as a Coleridgean paralysis of will with its manifestations as torpor, sloth and paralysing dejection, and positive (‘delicious diligent indolence' (Letters 1:2311)) as creative energy-fuelling laziness. Indolence to Keats was both, as Wordsworth (1926: 281) claimed, ‘majestic', as well as, in his own words, a ‘capital crime' (Letters 2:77). Yet, despite its apparent duplicity, indolence occupied an incredibly important place in Keats's life and was often not only the subject of his written word, but also the inspiration, or foundation for his creative oeuvre that in its many guises has a prominent place in his letters and poems. Willard Spiegleman in his book Majestic Indolence (1995: 85) goes as far as saying that indolence was ‘the central place in Keats's aesthetics as well as in his poetic achievement' and the ‘master obsession of his career'. Statements that perhaps......

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Title: Indolence, Keats's Muse Of Guilt
Approximate Word Count: 4420
Approximate Pages: 18 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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