Post on 11-Apr-2017
Taylor Williams Romantic Writings, 1815-1832 Formative Assignment
Explain why, and how, ‘English’ is significant in understanding Thomas De
Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.
In Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater,1 published in 1821, a sense
of English ‘ideological imperial identity’2 is expressed in contrast to the unknown, foreign
‘other’3 embodied by the ‘Malay’ (p.55) that arrives at De Quincey’s ‘Dove Cottage.’4 The
contempt and condescension with which De Quincey receives the Malay is representative of
xenophobic English anxieties regarding the ‘far-flung colonies’5 of the Orient. For example,
De Quincey questions - with a sense of confused disbelief - ‘what business a Malay could
have to transact amongst English mountains’ (p.55). Significantly, emphasis here is not
placed on any particular region, but rather De Quincey’s disbelief is in reference to the
Malay being anywhere that is considered ‘English.’ The derogatory language with which De
Quincey goes on to describe the Malay portrays a generalised and stereotypical perception
of the Orient that was held by many English people. Through sheer ignorance of the
unknown East, ‘every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was consequently a
racist, an imperialist and almost totally ethnocentric.’6
Due to the unknown nature of the Orient, and the subsequent ‘idea of terror’7 that this and
various stereotypes produce, Confessions can be said to contain multiple elements of the
Romantic sublime. Moreover, the terrifying and awe-inspiring imagery of De Quincey’s
1 Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 2008), (All further references shall be given in parentheses directly after quotation)2 Rajani Sudan, Fair Exotics: Xenophobic Subjects in English Literature, 1720-1850 (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), p. 163 Sudan, Fair Exotics, p. 164 Robert Morrison, ‘Radical Energies and De Quincey’s 1821 Confessions’ in Thomas De Quincey: New Theoretical and Critical Directions, ed. Robert Morrison and Daniel S. Roberts (London: Routledge, 2012), p. 63 5 Sudan, Fair Exotics, p. 176Michael J. Franklin, ‘Accessing India: Orientalism, anti-‘Indianism’ and the Rhetoric of Jones and Burke’ in Making British Indian Fictions, 1722-1823, ed. Ashok Malhotra (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p. 487 Nicola Trott, ‘The Picturesque, the Beautiful and the Sublime’ in A Companion to Romanticism, ed. Duncan Wu (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 82
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Taylor Williams Romantic Writings, 1815-1832 Formative Assignment
opium-induced dreams - evident in ‘The Pains of Opium’ - also contain sublime
characteristics. De Quincey wrestles with the threat of the terrifying unknown that takes
form in the shape of ‘savage tribes,’ ‘ancient, monumental, cruel, and elaborate religions of
Indostan’ and the ‘mere antiquity of Asiatic things’ (p.73). De Quincey goes on to state that
‘even Englishmen, though not bred in any knowledge of such institutions, cannot but
shudder at the mystic sublimity of castes that have flowed apart, and refused to mix’ (p.73).
Aside from directly referring to the ‘sublimity’ of his nightmarish visions, De Quincey
portrays a sense of inherent English imperial arrogance in stating that ‘even Englishmen’ -
alluding to traditional notions of English rationality and civility - would shudder. Moreover,
he confirms that Englishmen do not possess any understanding or knowledge of ‘such
institutions,’ thereby reinforcing the ‘idea of terror’ in relation to the unknown ‘other’ that
the Malay represents. A sublime response to a text is ‘induced by conditions of darkness,
privation and solitude’ and De Quincey is subjected to these three factors through sleep and
his subsequent dreams. Furthermore, previously in the text De Quincey refers to the fact
that the opium-eater will naturally seek ‘solitude and silence’ (p.48) to reach the
‘profoundest reveries’ (p.48). De Quincey goes on to state that this is the ‘divinest state
incident’ to the enjoyment of the opium-eater. Therefore, it can be said that De Quincey
believes that opium possesses the ability to induce a sense of ‘sublime power’8 that
‘introduces amongst [the faculties] the most exquisite order, legislation and harmony’ and
encourages ‘the diviner part of [the opium eater’s] nature’ (p.41).
8 Steven Vine, Reinventing the Sublime: Post-Romantic Literature and Theory (Sussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2013), p. 62
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Taylor Williams Romantic Writings, 1815-1832 Formative Assignment
Bibliography
Primary
De Quincey, Thomas, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (Oxford: Oxford World’s
Classics, 2008)
Secondary
Burke, Edmund, The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke (New York: Cosimo, 2008)
Franklin, Michael J., ‘Accessing India: Orientalism, anti-‘Indianism’ and the Rhetoric of Jones
and Burke’ in Making British Indian Fictions, 1722-1823, ed. Ashok Malhotra (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2012)
Robert Morrison, Robert, ‘Radical Energies and De Quincey’s 1821 Confessions’ in Thomas
De Quincey: New Theoretical and Critical Directions, ed. Robert Morrison and Daniel S. Roberts
(London: Routledge, 2012)
Sudan, Rajani, Fair Exotics: Xenophobic Subjects in English Literature, 1720-1850
(Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002)
Trott, Nicola, ‘The Picturesque, the Beautiful and the Sublime’ in A Companion to
Romanticism, ed. Duncan Wu (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999)
Vine, Steven, Reinventing the Sublime: Post-Romantic Literature and Theory (Sussex: Sussex
Academic Press, 2013)
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