浪漫詩人把想像力視為一種接近上帝的神聖力量.科律芝在"文學傳記"中則將"第二類型的想像力"描述成一種可以消融,瓦解死寂的宇宙而創造出新的和諧生命的力量.他與華滋華斯都屬於早期的浪漫詩人,對於宇宙抱持著一種樂觀的憧憬.他們認為透過想像力可以感觸到內在與外在生命一體的永恆之美.但是在濟慈早期的觀念裡,靈視想像變得更趨於極端.它代表了一種急於掙脫現實枷鎖的渴望,一種夢幻式的逃避主義.它的負面影響會導至唯我主義,自我封閉及畏縮.因此我們發現在濟慈早期的詩中最常出現的意象往往是夢境般的迷醉麻木,神馳恍忽,半夢半醒在田園美夢之中.但是隨著詩人的成長,他必須揚棄這種退怯的消極逃避,轉而發展出一套能夠清醒面對磨難痛苦的人生哲學,現實人生成為一段"塑造靈魂"的歷史.和科律芝一樣,濟慈也經驗到靈視想像衰退的負面後果.超越遇到挫折,美麗的田園蔽蔭蒙上疾病的陰影,現實與夢境的鴻溝更形加大.早期對於藝術所抱持的天真期望,以為可以把醜陋痛苦化為無形,現在已站不住腳.詩人益發感覺到靈視想像並無法撫平焦慮的心靈,反而帶來黑暗的魅影.從1818年到1819年秋天我們目睹到濟慈如何矛盾痛苦地掙扎於誨暗的現實和超越的追尋兩難之間,最後選擇投入到生老病死的人生做為他不可避免的宿命,充分體悟到靈視想像的侷限.在"海皮里昂的隕落"一詩中,濟慈對於藝術與靈視想像的體認達到新的境界,那就是坦然接受面對生命中的不完美與破碎."秋頌"一詩為濟慈悲苦短暫的一生暫時畫下完美的句點,在其中,濟慈成就了某種妥協,具體展現詩人"負面的能力",不再堅持虛幻不實的超越,轉而擁抱死亡,謳歌生命中短暫即逝的美感.

Coleridge and Wordsworth, the first generation of English romanticism, harborthe optimistic thought that the romantic imagination can work wonders to bringthe mirrage of the mind and the external world. But the romantic imagination inKeats, however, tends to go extremes to transcend the mortal boundary, to escape into the dreamscape. In Keats's early poetry, therefore, the dominating mode appears to be "trance," "dream," "intoxication," "drunkness," and "numbness." Here the visionary imagination functions as hedonistic play whichcan turn nothing nito something celestial, heavenly. What Keats embraces at thisstage is "wise passiveness." Such sheer lethargy is to be replaced by Keats's more strenuous philosophy of life--portraying life as a "vale of soul-making,"which demands that the poet develop a strong identity to engage with the harshrigor of this painful world. Like Coleridge in his later years, Keats experiences the terrible consequence of the recession of imagination. Transcendence is frustrated, gorgeous bower turns into a contaminated landscape; he sees all the more the exacerbating rupture between the ideal and the real. In his famous verse epistle to Reynolds he sees hallucination when imagination becomes a dark force to ruin the beautiful song of the nightingale. Dream induced by the visionary imagination does not pacify the mind but provokes deeper anxiety. It is under such inner conflict that Keatsassumes his poetic odyssey, hoping to discipline his naive, pleasure-seekingmind into an education of hardship. Keats sees a more bleak vision of humanity.From 1818 to September 1819 we witness the rapid blossoming of Keats's creativity. We see a brave soul engaging in a ambivalent struggle of inner debate between the two poles, with the visionary quest on the one hand, andthe dim opaque reality on the other. Eventually he chooses to bear the ghostlyburden of human mortality as his inevitable destiny, recognizing the limitations of the visionary imagination. In "To Autumn" Keats achieves atemporary compromise, where the poet fully lives out the doctrine of "Negative Capability" to welcome not only beauty, but also fear, terror, which constitute the cornerstone of life itself, to savor the inmmediate,transient beauty, to affirm life in death.