De Quincey Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Suspiria De Profundis, The English Mail Coach

What is the publication history of De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater?

first published anonymously in two instalments in 1821 in The London Magazine

released in book form 1822

released in revised edition 1856, much longer but often judged as inferior

What is the subtitle of the text suggesting the knowledge of classical culture and langauge that DQ likes to define his identity through

‘Being an extract from the Life of a Scholar’

In the opening, how does De QUincey contrast english sensibilities against french - irony, referencing Rousseau?

English repulsed by “spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars” - should leave this to “the spurious and defective sensibility of the French”

What is De QUincey’s response to London

“predominated horror recoiling from that unfathomed abyss in London into which I was now so willfully precipitating myself”

WHat does John Barrell suggest De QUincey does in his description of the young girl he finds in London and why

1991 - ages her down and emphasises her vulnerability - “hunger-bitten” - to make her fit the Elizabeth paradigm. forgets about her once he finds Ann.

How does De QUincey describe Ann as his sister

“sister in calamity”

“as affectionately as if she has been my sister”

How does Barrell describe what De Quincey is doing in both his descriptions of the girl and Ann

1991 - “reparative drama”

How does Walker describe these repetitive figures that De QUincey fails to save - cf. The Jerusalem scene (attempting to domesticate east through familiar biblical scene but still loses Ann)

2007 - “through such processes of repetition and doubling, De QUincey’s text starts to haunt itself”

How does De QUincey figure his own instability of identity when he goes to visit the Jewish money lender Dell in London

“It was strange to me to find my own self, materialiter considered … accused … of counterfeiting my own self, formaliter considered”

How does De QUincey fail to prove his own identity after visiting the jewish money lender

tries to prove his identity through aristocratic connections to Lord Altamon but then cannot get in contact with him - gets testamony from Desart instead but doesnt note patronymic - lack of paternal identity suggests an anxiety about personal identity

What does Levin describe De QUincey’s confession as confirming, concerning his being and identity

1998 - “the being shattering process of the confession”

How does De Quincey describe the contradictory and paradoxical selves the East and opium confer on him - religion, opium as religion and him as priest?

“I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed”

How does de QUincey describe himself as becoming indistinguishable from the East - being an I that is also an It

“confounded with all unutterable slimy things, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud”

How does Schmitt describe the power of opium?

1997 - “Potentially deracinating”

How does De QUincey describe the Malay against the girl and maid

“slavish gestures” “tiger cat” vs “beuatiful English face of the girl”

What verb does De QUincey use to describe himself AND the Malay to the reader - sense of visual alterity, doubling, emphasis on colours.

“paint”

What different figures does Barrell suggest the Malay could be

1991

De QUincey himself

William who De QUincey sees as an active agent in sister ELizabeth’s death

What is the first ‘gift’ De QUincey provides to the Malay

speaks the iliad to him - greek Achilles conquering and slaying Asian Hector and graphically desecrating his body. symbol of cultural prestige - authenticates narratives of empire.

How does Leask describe De QUincey addressing the Malay in greek

1992 - “to address the Malay in greek is to conquer him”

How else does de QUincey describe the classical languages elsewhere

“the sublime masonic tie of brotherhood we ourselves possess, we members of christendom”

What is the second gift De QUincey gives the Malay - tryng to kill a part of himself? presents himself as protecting innocent english girl.

Opium - 1822 “the quantity was enough to kill three dragoons and their horses”. 1856 “enought to kill some half-dozen dragoons together with their horses”

What does the Malay become for De QUincey?

“the cursed crocodile” “multiplied into ten thousand repetitions”

Barrell - how does De Quincey envision the East

1991 - “plethora of meaningless signification which characterises the East”

De Quincey struggling with time

“Space swelled, and was amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity … I sometimes seemed to have lived for 70 or 100 years in one night”

De QUincey fearing antiquity of Asia - suggesting Asia as primordial state for everyone (East within him)

“To me the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual. A young Chinese seems to me an antediluvian man renewed … Southern Asia is, and has been for thousands of yearsm the part of the earth most swarming with human life; the great officina gentium.””

What fear does De QUincey describe in The English Mail Coach (1849) and what scary creature appears again

also defining englishness again - DQ english opium eater v successful - part of his trademark

fearing w/in him “some horrid alien nature”

coachman transfigures into egyptian crocodile

What does de QUincey suggest the past contains in Suspiria de Profundis (1845)

“deep, deep tragedies of intimacy”

What does De QUincey suggest the true focus of the story is

“not the opium eater but the opium is the true hero of the tale; and the legitimate centre on which the interest revolves” 

What does the text end with

Disturbed sleep - “I will sleep no more” = haunted by dreams. Also the terror of the Miltonian fall, and the inevitability of human temptation.

How does De QUincey reflect Walter Benjamin’s Flaneur figure from his works on Baudelaire in mid 19th C Paris

a figure outside the domestic unit, an observer. “someone abandoned in the crowd … shares the situation of the commodity” - emphasises notion of phantasmagorical city.

Summarise the dates of the British opium wars with China and the impact they had on England’s self presentation

What does De QUincey specifically encourage regarding the opium wars

1839-42, 1856-8 - closing trading channels for opium.

British imperialism characterised as a moral crusade but also emphasises England’s vulnerability.

DQ in 1840 Blackwood’s essay encourages “war conducted with exemplary vigour” compelling the emperors’s submission in China by force.

What does Thomas Macauley describe in his 1835 text on Indian Education.

cf. fears of imperialism diluting englishness.

project of creating Indian ‘mimic men’ - “indian in blood and colour but english in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect”

in WHat texts is opium featued

H Od B4 - ‘the drug to heal all pain and anger’

Verg georgics 1 ‘poppies soaked with the sleep of Lethe

Chaucer mentions in The Knights Tale and The Legend of Good Women

WS mentions “the drowsy syrups of the world” Othello 3.3.331

Milton recalls Homer’s description of Opium in Comus.

Leask - opium v the de quinceyan self

1992 - “opium stands in relation to the de Quinceyan self as a simulacrum”