The 'serpents' whine': Derrida's pharmakon and differance in the works of John Keats

This thesis demonstrates how Jacques Derrida's theory, particularly the notions of the pharmakon and différance, parallels and further explains John Keats's own theories of the importance of ambiguity in writing, writers, and readers. Derrida's concepts lend a vocabulary to Keats's treatment of the movement and play inherent in language, and the destabilization of common binary oppositions.;With an understanding of Keats's medical background, his employment of the ambiguity of common cures seems to signify a deliberate attempt to expose the lack of a fixed relationship between signifier and signified. Keats's play with the multiple effects of pharmaceutical substances in such poems as “Isabella” and “The Eve of St. Agnes” provides a clear example of his employment of the notion of Derrida's pharmakon . Such poems as “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “Lamia,” and “To Autumn” reveal Keats's more subtle and complex uses of the pharmakon and différance, as he examines the weaknesses of structures that depend on rigid binaries.;Keats's theory of poetics is most clearly defined in his letters, where he establishes a preference for uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts, and encourages a sense of ambiguity and indecision. This selflessness and movement that Keats promotes in writing, writers, and readers erases borders between the three, and they become connected in their common movement and play, illustrating Derrida's assertion that “il n'y a pas de hors-texte.”...