Opium and Romanticism
Encyclopedia
Readers of Romantic poetry
usually come into contact with literary criticisms about the influence of opium
on its works. Whether or not opium had a direct effect is still up for debate, however the literary criticisms that have emerged throughout the years suggest very compelling things about opium and its impacts on Romantic
texts. Usually these criticisms tend to focus on poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge
, Thomas De Quincey
and George Crabbe
.
was not only a time of growth for literature and poetry, but also a time of increased use of opium. Interspersed among importation of opium from the Middle and Far East countries, Britain produced a meager amount itself and utilized it, at least initially, as a medicine and also an ingredient in patent medicine
s to treat a variety of pains and diseases. Given the highly addictive
nature of opium, users eventually began using for recreation instead of healing purposes. Its hypothesized effects on visions and the subsequent products of the Romantic poets who used opium have been met by many theories, but three milestone literary criticisms about opium usually emerge--M. H. Abrams' claim that opium opened up a creative channel, Elisabeth Schneider's argument that opium did not inspire visions, but only a day-dream like trance, and Alethea Hayter's position that opium's influences were a combination of the previous two claims.
, Egypt
, Smyrna
, and the Levant
areas. Opium imports in Britain were dominated mostly by Turkey
, which accounted for 80-90% of the share brought in during the majority of the nineteenth century. Although most of the opium came from the Orient
, attempts were made to grow opium in England as an “agricultural improvement in Britain.” For awhile, opium was used as a sort of currency concerning trade with China, because while other nations had to pay great amounts of silver for tea, England used its opium trade through India, combined with cotton, as a bargaining chip for imports. As importation increased, many patent opium products appeared and were sold in general stores as well as apothecaries. These patent medicines included things such as Godfrey’s Cordial, Dalby’s Carminative, McMunn’s Elixir, Batley’s Sedative Solution, and Mother Bailey’s Quieting Syrup. The First Opium War
occurred between 1839 and 1842 when Britain realized that opium grown in India
could be sold in China
for a profit, and their army forced the Emperor to sign a treaty allowing free trade, which had been initially prohibited for opium.
was the first person in Britain to create opium in the 1730s. In one of his papers he describes the biology or botany of the poppy plant, how he created opium, and the experiments he conducted on animals. One section of his paper describes how opium was believed to treat pain, cause sleep, increase perspiration, raise the spirits, and relax the muscles. With these things in mind, it was recommended for pain and any sort of irritation to the nerves or motions of spirits. Opium became a popular "aspirin
-like" product of the early nineteenth century. George Crabbe was prescribed opium in 1790 to relieve pain, and he continued to use it for the rest of his life. At the time of George Crabbe's first prescription, the East India Company began hiring Indian Villages to cultivate large quantities of opium. Medicinally, it had been used as a reliable cure since the beginning of the medical field. William Cullen
and John Brown
, two well-known physicians at the time, claimed it cured things such as typhus
, cancer
, cholera
, rheumatism
, smallpox
, malaria
, venereal disease
, hysteria
, and gout
in the eighteenth century. However, some individuals recognized the dangers that opium held. Some wrote into newspapers, such as The Times
, and emphasized the dangers of giving a child medication such as the “Syrup of Poppies” or other patent medications, which contained an unspecified amount of opium known to be dangerous to give to infants. A deeper medical analysis revealed that opium created and uplifted spirit and happy disposition, which was then followed by symptoms of a very opposite effect which includes the mind “becoming gradually dull and languid, the body averse to motion, little affected by customary impressions, and inclined to sleep.” Following a larger dose, “all these symptoms continue to increase; and tremors, convulsions, vertigo, stupor, insensibility, and deprivation of muscular action appear.” Regardless of the mixed reviews in the public sphere, during the time of increasing imports and the unconcern of doctors (especially demonstrated by certain journals documenting how to cultivate the poppy plant and create opium), there were more hard drugs in England than any time before or any time that followed. Eventually, the drug moved beyond medicinal use as its imaginative powers attracted attention—the descriptions accompanying the effects of opium moved from drowsy effects to those of its power over the imagination and thought process. This was especially true within the circle of Romantic poets, specifically Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas De Quincey, who suffered from addiction to opium.
, Coleridge, or from other users. Schneider writes "The relaxation of tension and conflict, accompanied by a sense of pleasant ease, occasionally helps to release for a time the neurotic person’s natural powers of though or imagination or (rarely) of action, though it does not give him powers that he did not have or change the character of his normal powers." Research has suggested that heavy doses of opium in addicts does result in a lengthy day-dream like trance (often reaching what opiate users describe as a "nod", when the user's mind enters a space between waking thought and sleep), and that the euphoria
it produces, according to Schneider, merely frees the creativity naturally found within the poet.
visions in which they occur get translated into poetry. In essence, she states that, "the action of opium may unbare some of the semi-conscious processes by which literature begins to be written" in that the act of dreaming (stimulated by opium) crystallizes the past into patterns reflecting truth, and these are what inspire or are found in romantic poetry created by opium users. Everyone is exposed to these every-day images, but opium can add a different dimension to them. Hayter specifies that while opium may enhance these images into a creative piece of text, it also robs the individual of the power to make use of it, because the images are not easily recalled and recorded. The necessary items to create a poem as creative as those by the opium-using Romantic poets, according to this argument, is a tendency to day dream, an image, and the ability to communicate what was seen in that dream-like trance. Her view falls between the two previous literary criticisms of opium use during the Romantic era.
, John Keats
, and Percy Shelley imbibed on opium, whether for medicinal or recreational uses. In fact, all of the Romantic poets, with the exception of William Wordsworth, appear to have used it at some point. For example, Byron’s wife discovered that he had a phial of the Black Drop
. Individuals such as Crabbe, Coleridge, De Quincey, Byron, or Keats were most likely even given it as a child to treat some sort of physical ailment.
gave me repose, not sleep; but, you, I believe, know how divine that repose is, what a spot of enchantment, a green spot of fountain and flowers and trees in the very heart of a waste of sands!” There has been much controversy debating if his poems Kubla Khan
and Rime of the Ancient Mariner were the results of opium visions.
's trips to a surreal world made possible by the consumption of opium he was able to discover methods of psychoanalysis that Sigmund Freud
formally introduced more than half a century later.
Romantic poetry
Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day , also influenced poetry...
usually come into contact with literary criticisms about the influence of opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
on its works. Whether or not opium had a direct effect is still up for debate, however the literary criticisms that have emerged throughout the years suggest very compelling things about opium and its impacts on Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
texts. Usually these criticisms tend to focus on poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
, Thomas De Quincey
Thomas de Quincey
Thomas Penson de Quincey was an English esssayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater .-Child and student:...
and George Crabbe
George Crabbe
George Crabbe was an English poet and naturalist.-Biography:He was born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the son of a tax collector, and developed his love of poetry as a child. In 1768, he was apprenticed to a local doctor, who taught him little, and in 1771 he changed masters and moved to Woodbridge...
.
Overview
The Romantic era in BritainGreat Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
was not only a time of growth for literature and poetry, but also a time of increased use of opium. Interspersed among importation of opium from the Middle and Far East countries, Britain produced a meager amount itself and utilized it, at least initially, as a medicine and also an ingredient in patent medicine
Patent medicine
Patent medicine refers to medical compounds of questionable effectiveness sold under a variety of names and labels. The term "patent medicine" is somewhat of a misnomer because, in most cases, although many of the products were trademarked, they were never patented...
s to treat a variety of pains and diseases. Given the highly addictive
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
nature of opium, users eventually began using for recreation instead of healing purposes. Its hypothesized effects on visions and the subsequent products of the Romantic poets who used opium have been met by many theories, but three milestone literary criticisms about opium usually emerge--M. H. Abrams' claim that opium opened up a creative channel, Elisabeth Schneider's argument that opium did not inspire visions, but only a day-dream like trance, and Alethea Hayter's position that opium's influences were a combination of the previous two claims.
Opium and the Oriental
The fascination and experimentation with opium occurred partially because of its connections to the oriental tales such as Purchas his Pilgrimmage, Travels through Persia, and Memoires du Baron de Tott, sur les Tures et les Tartares, where opium use was exotically featured. During the eighteenth century, opium was primarily imported into Britain from countries such as PersiaIran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...
, and the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
areas. Opium imports in Britain were dominated mostly by Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, which accounted for 80-90% of the share brought in during the majority of the nineteenth century. Although most of the opium came from the Orient
Orient
The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...
, attempts were made to grow opium in England as an “agricultural improvement in Britain.” For awhile, opium was used as a sort of currency concerning trade with China, because while other nations had to pay great amounts of silver for tea, England used its opium trade through India, combined with cotton, as a bargaining chip for imports. As importation increased, many patent opium products appeared and were sold in general stores as well as apothecaries. These patent medicines included things such as Godfrey’s Cordial, Dalby’s Carminative, McMunn’s Elixir, Batley’s Sedative Solution, and Mother Bailey’s Quieting Syrup. The First Opium War
First Opium War
The First Anglo-Chinese War , known popularly as the First Opium War or simply the Opium War, was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty of China over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations, trade, and the administration of justice...
occurred between 1839 and 1842 when Britain realized that opium grown in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
could be sold in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
for a profit, and their army forced the Emperor to sign a treaty allowing free trade, which had been initially prohibited for opium.
Medical uses and effects
Dr. Charles AlstonCharles Alston
Charles Henry Alston was an African-American painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist and teacher who lived and worked in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Alston was active in the Harlem Renaissance; Alston was the first African American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration's...
was the first person in Britain to create opium in the 1730s. In one of his papers he describes the biology or botany of the poppy plant, how he created opium, and the experiments he conducted on animals. One section of his paper describes how opium was believed to treat pain, cause sleep, increase perspiration, raise the spirits, and relax the muscles. With these things in mind, it was recommended for pain and any sort of irritation to the nerves or motions of spirits. Opium became a popular "aspirin
Aspirin
Aspirin , also known as acetylsalicylic acid , is a salicylate drug, often used as an analgesic to relieve minor aches and pains, as an antipyretic to reduce fever, and as an anti-inflammatory medication. It was discovered by Arthur Eichengrun, a chemist with the German company Bayer...
-like" product of the early nineteenth century. George Crabbe was prescribed opium in 1790 to relieve pain, and he continued to use it for the rest of his life. At the time of George Crabbe's first prescription, the East India Company began hiring Indian Villages to cultivate large quantities of opium. Medicinally, it had been used as a reliable cure since the beginning of the medical field. William Cullen
William Cullen
William Cullen FRS FRSE FRCPE FPSG was a Scottish physician, chemist and agriculturalist, and one of the most important professors at the Edinburgh Medical School, during its heyday as the leading center of medical education in the English-speaking world.Cullen was also a central figure in the...
and John Brown
John Brown (doctor)
John Brown was a Scottish physician.Brown was born in Berwickshire and after attending the parish school at Duns, he moved to Edinburgh and enrolled in divinity classes at the university of Edinburgh and worked part time as a private tutor...
, two well-known physicians at the time, claimed it cured things such as typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
, cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, rheumatism
Rheumatism
Rheumatism or rheumatic disorder is a non-specific term for medical problems affecting the joints and connective tissue. The study of, and therapeutic interventions in, such disorders is called rheumatology.-Terminology:...
, smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
, malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
, venereal disease
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
, hysteria
Hysteria
Hysteria, in its colloquial use, describes unmanageable emotional excesses. People who are "hysterical" often lose self-control due to an overwhelming fear that may be caused by multiple events in one's past that involved some sort of severe conflict; the fear can be centered on a body part, or,...
, and gout
Gout
Gout is a medical condition usually characterized by recurrent attacks of acute inflammatory arthritis—a red, tender, hot, swollen joint. The metatarsal-phalangeal joint at the base of the big toe is the most commonly affected . However, it may also present as tophi, kidney stones, or urate...
in the eighteenth century. However, some individuals recognized the dangers that opium held. Some wrote into newspapers, such as The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, and emphasized the dangers of giving a child medication such as the “Syrup of Poppies” or other patent medications, which contained an unspecified amount of opium known to be dangerous to give to infants. A deeper medical analysis revealed that opium created and uplifted spirit and happy disposition, which was then followed by symptoms of a very opposite effect which includes the mind “becoming gradually dull and languid, the body averse to motion, little affected by customary impressions, and inclined to sleep.” Following a larger dose, “all these symptoms continue to increase; and tremors, convulsions, vertigo, stupor, insensibility, and deprivation of muscular action appear.” Regardless of the mixed reviews in the public sphere, during the time of increasing imports and the unconcern of doctors (especially demonstrated by certain journals documenting how to cultivate the poppy plant and create opium), there were more hard drugs in England than any time before or any time that followed. Eventually, the drug moved beyond medicinal use as its imaginative powers attracted attention—the descriptions accompanying the effects of opium moved from drowsy effects to those of its power over the imagination and thought process. This was especially true within the circle of Romantic poets, specifically Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas De Quincey, who suffered from addiction to opium.
Direct inspiration
M. H. Abrams argued that opium users during the Romantic era became “inspired to ecstasies” when experiencing opium’s effects. It was not assumed that poetry was created during the opium-induced stupor, but that the images that were experienced provided the raw material of the poem, and the poet had to create a surrounding framework to support it. Abrams writes how opium-using poets, "utilized the imagery from these dreams in his literary creations, and sometimes, under the direct inspiration of opium, achieved his best writing." The vividness of the sensory items, the feeling of persecution for eternity, or even the misguided sense of time found within the works of some poets indicates the influences of opium on their dreams and subsequent poems that they built around their dreams. A poet who did not use opium could not gain access to the planet opened solely by the symptoms of using. This unfamiliar realm, known only to users, according to M. H. Abrams, supplied the material for some of the Romantic poet's best writing.Opium debunked
Another direction, more recently postulated by Elisabeth Schneider and in opposition to Abrams, utilizes evidence based on medical and textual evidence. Her idea supposes that the Romantic poet’s mind was not affected by opium as it was initially believed to be by critics. While earlier views embodied the idea that opium-induced dreams inspired the production of poetry that was otherwise inaccessible, Schneider's view suggests that literary critics and some physicians who have not specifically studied opiates have an inadequate account of the effects of opium. This occurs partly from a lag in time, but also because of the fallibility of early medical writing on opium. Most of the medical writing on opium, up until the 1920s, was based upon accounts from De Quincey in Confessions of an English Opium-EaterConfessions of an English Opium-Eater
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life...
, Coleridge, or from other users. Schneider writes "The relaxation of tension and conflict, accompanied by a sense of pleasant ease, occasionally helps to release for a time the neurotic person’s natural powers of though or imagination or (rarely) of action, though it does not give him powers that he did not have or change the character of his normal powers." Research has suggested that heavy doses of opium in addicts does result in a lengthy day-dream like trance (often reaching what opiate users describe as a "nod", when the user's mind enters a space between waking thought and sleep), and that the euphoria
Euphoria
Euphoria is an emotional and mental state defined as a sense of great elation and well being.Euphoria may also refer to:* Euphoria , a genus of scarab beetles* Euphoria, a genus name previously used for the longan and other trees...
it produces, according to Schneider, merely frees the creativity naturally found within the poet.
Opium, real images, and dreaming as a channel
The most recent argument deduced by Alethea Hayter suggests that opium opens up the individual’s mind to remember raw materials (such as art) found within one’s life and the dreams, reveries, or hypnagogicHypnagogia
Hypnagogia is the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep , originally coined in adjectival form as "hypnagogic" by Alfred Maury....
visions in which they occur get translated into poetry. In essence, she states that, "the action of opium may unbare some of the semi-conscious processes by which literature begins to be written" in that the act of dreaming (stimulated by opium) crystallizes the past into patterns reflecting truth, and these are what inspire or are found in romantic poetry created by opium users. Everyone is exposed to these every-day images, but opium can add a different dimension to them. Hayter specifies that while opium may enhance these images into a creative piece of text, it also robs the individual of the power to make use of it, because the images are not easily recalled and recorded. The necessary items to create a poem as creative as those by the opium-using Romantic poets, according to this argument, is a tendency to day dream, an image, and the ability to communicate what was seen in that dream-like trance. Her view falls between the two previous literary criticisms of opium use during the Romantic era.
Literary users and their creations
Typical use and dependence within the middle-class were not confined to the literary circle, although the records of famous users are more readily available. It has been proven or suggested through letters and notebooks that George Crabbe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas de Quincey, Lord ByronGeorge Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
, John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
, and Percy Shelley imbibed on opium, whether for medicinal or recreational uses. In fact, all of the Romantic poets, with the exception of William Wordsworth, appear to have used it at some point. For example, Byron’s wife discovered that he had a phial of the Black Drop
Kendal Black Drop
Kendal Black Drop was a drug based on opium. Named after Kendal in the Lake District, England, it is associated with the romantic poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge....
. Individuals such as Crabbe, Coleridge, De Quincey, Byron, or Keats were most likely even given it as a child to treat some sort of physical ailment.
Coleridge
Coleridge began using opium in 1791 to relieve rheumatism, but later he believed that opium made his body harmonize with his soul. He was said to have written in a letter to his brother George Coleridge, “LaudanumLaudanum
Laudanum , also known as Tincture of Opium, is an alcoholic herbal preparation containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight ....
gave me repose, not sleep; but, you, I believe, know how divine that repose is, what a spot of enchantment, a green spot of fountain and flowers and trees in the very heart of a waste of sands!” There has been much controversy debating if his poems Kubla Khan
Kubla Khan
Kubla Khan is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep in 1816...
and Rime of the Ancient Mariner were the results of opium visions.
Percy Shelley
Percy Shelley was said by scholars to have used opium to alter his state of thinking and free his mind. To "dampen his nerves," Shelly took laudanum, according to letters he wrote, as well as biographies. When Shelley secretively began to date Mary Shelley he started to carry a flask with laudanum in it around to calm his nerves. After Shelley was banned from seeing Mary, he reportedly ran into her house and gave her laudanum, waving a pistol in the air and shouting, "By this you can escape Tyranny. They wish to separate us, my beloved, but death shall unite us." Shelley believed that opium allowed for the individual to question societal norms and beliefs while allowing for ideas of radical social change to form. Shelley reportedly used ladanum in a suicide attempt, taking it to free as well as harm himself. Shelley believed opium created confusion for him between cause and effect, as well as between memory and forgetfulness. Shelley began experiencing body spasms and upon visiting his new doctor, Andrea Vacca Berlinghieri, to stop taking laudanum. Shelley did not heed the doctor's warning and continued to have spasms, haunting dreams, and confusions about reality. Opium both helped with Shelley's creativity and harmed his mental state.De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
De Quincey started using opium as a reliever for a toothache in 1804, and his book, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, was the first documentation of an opium addict to be published. He focused on the pleasures and the pains along with its influence on his works. His book was often accused of encouraging individuals to try opium and was blamed when they subsequently suffered from its side effects or addiction. With the ability to purchase laudanum easily from many street vendors, de Quincey was quoted, saying, "happiness might now be bought for a penny." With respect to literary triumphs, De Quincey notes in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater how the increased activity in the brain because of opium increased his ability to create new things out of raw material. De Quincey notes the oscillation of symptoms between dreams (which he claims to be a source of his intense suffering) and nightmares, and the reader recognizes the grip opium addiction has on De Quincey and possibly other users at the time. Through Thomas de QuinceyThomas de Quincey
Thomas Penson de Quincey was an English esssayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater .-Child and student:...
's trips to a surreal world made possible by the consumption of opium he was able to discover methods of psychoanalysis that Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
formally introduced more than half a century later.