Ode on Indolence: Romantic Writers and Opium

The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
Pain had no string, and pleasure's wreath no flower:
O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense
Unhaunted quite of all but-nothingness?

-from "Ode on Indolence," May 1819 by John Keats (1795-1821)

Extracted from the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, during 100 A.D. in Egypt and Asia Minor, opium was first used as a medication by physicians. Later, its uses in medicine spread to ancient Greece, yet it was also considered a mystical agent in ancient mythology and in the epic poems of Homer. Not long after, opium traveled to Rome, where the opium-extracted compound "mithridate" gained long-lasting popularity as a medicine. It disappeared in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, and only reappeared after European travelers returned from the East in the 11th century. By the 17th century, opium was used strictly for medication in Western Europe. The first known English opium-addict writer was Thomas Shadwell, a 17th century playwright. By the end of the 17th century, opium-addiction became more widespread. At this time, the specific effects of opium on the human body and psyche remained a mystery. Several used it as a therapeutic drug to relieve depression, as well as physical pain. In addition, many children's patent medicines contained potent amounts of opium, which were often administered to cure crying and fits.

According to Hayter's Opium and the Romantic Imagination, it was not until the British writer Thomas De Quincey theorized the effects of opium on the imagination that many other British poets and writers began experimenting with it. De Quincey believed that opium, especially the dreams that resulted from its use, was an important part of the creative process that contributed to his art. It was upon this theory, unveiled to the world in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), that De Quincey advocated the use of opium. However, not everyone accepted it; 19th century American and French physicians disapproved of the recreational use of opium.

Among the suspected dabblers and addicts of opium-eating were Edgar Allan Poe and John Keats; among the definite, Charles Pierre Baudelaire and obviously, the members of the Club des Haschischins. British poet George Crabbe was never suspected of it, for he never wrote of opium dreams; he only mentioned the drug once, specifically in his poem, The Flowers. After his death, his son revealed Crabbe's opium addiction. Samuel Taylor Coleridge suffered from addiction, yet he believed that there was no association between his dreams and his opium habits until 1814, when he acknowledged that his nightmares came as a result of his drug abuse. He later goes on to say that The Pains of Sleep, written in 1803, was "an exact and most faithful portraiture of the state of my mind under influence of the incipient bodily derangement from my use of Opium, at the time that I yet remained ignorant of the cause" (Hayter 199). Also, It is suspected that "Kubla Khan" was written under the influence of Coleridge's opium dreams.

Even Lord Byron, Wilkie Collins and Francis Thompson practiced and wrote of their experiences with opium. Among writers who took opium for medicinal purposes, and seldom experienced or wrote of its effects were Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Sir Walter Scott, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, James Thompson, and Gérard de Nerval. Nevertheless, many Romantic writers were fascinated with the output of creativity and imagination that they believed opium could induce.

Sources:

"Opium," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Hayter, Alethea. Opium and the Romantic Generation. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968.

Bremness, Lesley. Herbs. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1994.