Opium and the Romantic Imagination

by Alethea Hayter

Book Overview

Does the habit of taking drugs make authors write better, or worse, or differently? Does it alter the quality of their consciousness, shape their imagery, influence their technique? For the Romantic... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• ISBN: B001NDU5Z8
• Release Date: January 1970
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Opium and Writing for the Professor and the Layman.

I read this wonderful book in my early years of college and it influenced my choice of major and my thesis topic (On Thomas De Quincey and the benefits of opium to his work ). Essentially a series of brief biographies outlining several famous authors from the 16th the the 19th century, and how their addictions affected their lives,relationships and creative art. The best section is on Thomas de Quincey (Author of "Confessions of an English Opium Eater"), who had a successful career as a freelance writer while deeply addicted. He is compared and contrasted with S.T Coleridge, who became a famous poet before aquiring his habit, which then led to his writing a handful of great opium influenced poems ("Dejection: An Ode", "Christabel" and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" which is rife with addictive imagery) before becoming almost totally incapacitated except as a speaker. Hayter claims ,quite convincingly ,a controversial theory that Coleridge used a very strong brand of Laudenum (called "Black Drop")which was heated with ascetic acid, converting it directly into the much more addictive compound heroin!) I disagree strongly with some of Hayter's conclusions, but they are all well-documented and sensible. The best book on creativity and drug use before the rise of the drug culture in the late 20th century.