The 17th century is known for some of the most infamous and most influential literary movements to this day. It brought about a plethora famous poets and writers that broke many social and literary boundaries. But with these famous poets came famous addictions. One particular weakness many Western poets of this time suffered was substance abuse. Particularly the over indulgence of opium and alcohol; especially during the Romantic era. Poets such as Thomas de Quincey, Percy Shelley, Samuel Coleridge, Charles Baudelaire, and John Keats were the most recognized for falling under substance abuse. It is said the partaking of these intoxicants may have had a major influence on these poets’ literary work, family, social life, and careers.
“Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy”. (Wiki) . Opium is said to have been in existence since ancient times, and is still produced using ancient methods. .Before opium became a popular substance to abuse it was mostly used for medicinal purposes or uses. Countries such as “Sumerian, Egypt, and India” ( opiates.net). contributed to the national widespread of opium. They found it to be the most valuable form of pain relief. The wide spread availability of opium helped surgeons all over perform longer surgery ,which lead to more efficient and safer medical operations. Alcohol and ethyl were also common pain relievers in ancient times, but many physicians preferred opium because it was less threatening to the human’s sensory organs and didn’t impair their intellectual/motor judgment as much. This was only when opium was used at correct lower dosages. Physicians believed opium’s healing medical capabilities consisted of “resists to poison and venomous bites, cures chronic headache, v...
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"Opium and Romanticism." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Nov. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
"The Plant Of Joy." A Brief History of Opium. Bltc.com, n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2013
Works Cited
Abrams, M. H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: Norton, 1974. Print.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Christabel ; Kubla Khan, a Vision ; The Pains of Sleep. London: Printed for J. Murray by W. Bulmer and, 1816. Print.
De, Quincey Thomas. Confessions of an Opium Eater. Girard, Kan.: Haldeman-Julius, [192. Print.
Dickey, Colin. "Roundtable." Lapham's Quarterly. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Hill, John Spencer. "A Coleridge Companion." A Coleridge Companion. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
"Opium and Romanticism." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Nov. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
"The Plant Of Joy." A Brief History of Opium. Bltc.com, n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2013
In the introduction to the Oxford edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Emma Letley describes the desire to escape from the "Calvinistic confines of nineteenth-century bourgeois" society, and relates that Mr. Stevenson himself "would use a benign doubleness to deal with the pressures of high bourgeois existence" and assumed an alias to become one of the "heavy-drinking, convivial, blasphemous iconoclasts. . ." in order to "full-bodiedly enjoy those pleasures denied to [him] and Dr. Jekyll." (Introduction, x). With the knowledge that Stevenson resorted to alcohol in order to escape the pressures and demands that fell upon him due to his social class, it is interesting to examine his novella, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as a commentary about the evils of addiction to alc...
Where did this drug come from and what makes it different from any other drug that is on the market? Heroin's origins go back long before Christ was a bleep on the radar. It goes back to 1200 B.C. Or the Bronze Age. At that time how ever heroin would be known as its chemically altered state of the poppy seeds. Even at that time however the ancient peoples of that time knew that if the poppy seeds juice were collected and dried. the extract that was left behind could make a effective painkiller. This would later be named opium. There were small incidents of it appearing in Europe, for instance it was used by the gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. But as a whole it would take more then a millennium for opium to travel from the Middle East to the Europe. This only occurred do to crusades. In just a few hundred after that is went from a rarely used painkiller to a liquid that was said to cure all aliments and would even lead to the most humiliating defeat China Empire. In the 1803 opium became dwarfed by its new brother morphine which is named in honor of the Greek god Morpheus who is the god of dreams. Morphine is an extract of opium and is ruffly 10 times the strength of its counter part. After Morphine creation it was put to used almost at once to assist battle field victims. This was a mistake however, because this refined does of opium is also 10 times more addicting then it was in its original form. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers would retur...
It is said that, after the death of Virginia, Poe turned to the use of alcohol more frequently and his behavior became more erratic. Drinking large amounts of alcohol increases the risk fa...
Brecher, E. (n.d.). Opium Smoking Is Outlawed. Licit and Illicit Drugs. Retrieved April 20, 2014, from http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu6.htm
Altered States: A History of Drug Abuse in America, Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities, c1993, 1 videocassette (57 min.)
Hanes, William Travis, and Frank Sanello. Opium Wars: the Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another. Naperville, IL: Source, 2002. Print.
Rush, James R. "Opium in Java: A Sinister Friend." The Journal of Asian Studies 44.3 (1985): 549-60. JSTOR. Web. .
Government has not always seen fit to outlaw psychoactive drugs in the Western world. In fact, there was no prohibition in this country until 1914. Cocaine and Marijuana were both used in the late 19th century both for medicinal and recreational purposes. During this time there was considerable pressure for a ban on alcohol, but narcotics were simply not viewed as a threat to society. N...
One-hundred years ago some drugs was legal to possess and even children could buy drugs like morphine, opium, marijuana, and cocaine. These drugs if got caught with them today could result in a life sentence it today’s society. 1914 was a change for these drugs it was like overnight these drugs become illegal. The reason for this change in 1914 wa...
In 1938, The opium was still being used by physicians in the form of morphine.
Marijuana as a medicine? Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. 2001. The 'Secondary' of the 'Se Ravage, Barbara. The “Marijuana Update.”
medicine, "Herbal," in the 2nd century B.C., and was used in China as an anesthetic 5,000 years ago. The ancient Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and East Indians used the drug to control muscle spasms, reduce pain, and to treat indigestion. It was commonly used in folk medicines in Africa and Asia. As early as 1611, marijuana was cultivated for its fiber in Jamestown, Virginia. In 19th century America, marijuana was used by the medical profession for treating spastic conditions, headaches, labor pains, insomnia, and menstrual cramps. It is still used as a medicine in the Middle East and in Asia (9).
al, 2011, pp.76-78). Dross was shown to be more addictive than regular opium and most users were reported addicts thus, the risky behaviors associated with this population support the idea that dependence and abuse of opium leads to many negative behavioral changes. Opium has a wide array of positive effects on health with acute usage and is commonly used in medicine. Opium has been used for centuries as an analgesic; it also can be used as a muscle relaxant, it reduces muscle tone, which makes it beneficial to treat diarrhea or severe cramps. It also has antitussive properties and is useful in the treatment of server coughs. Opium use has negative side effects as well, which are often associated with chronic usage or toxicity. Toxicity side effects include elevated blood pressure, decreased frequency and shallower breaths, constipation, stomach pain, decreased appetite, urine retention that can cause dehydration and a decreased secretion of many important sex hormones. Chronic effects can include weight loss (cachexia) as a result of the decreased
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "Kubla Kahn" in The McGraw-Hill Book of Poetry. Ed. Kraft Rompf and Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993.
It is believed that “Kubla Khan” was created by Coleridge when he was in a deep sleep that was induced by the use of opiates which were prescribed for dysentery. He fell asleep while reading Purcha’s Pilgrimage about building of Kubla Khan’s palace and garden. When he woke up from experiencing the dream in which he created the poem he began writing it down. He was part way through writing the poem and was interrupted by a person from the nearby town of Porlock. After this interruption he was unable to complete the poem because his access to the dream was lost. The unfinished work was not published for three decades. Much mystery has enshrouded “Kubla Khan” and it’s meaning due to the circumstances of it’s creation. The poem itself is as mystical and interesting as the story behind its creation.