NARCOPOLIS: THE SECRET LIFE OF OPIUM IN THE CITY
NARCOPOLIS: THE SECRET LIFE OF OPIUM IN THE CITY
Author(s): Roxana Elena DoncuSubject(s): Studies of Literature, Studies in violence and power, Health and medicine and law, Sociology of Culture, 18th Century, 19th Century
Published by: Editura Arhipelag XXI
Keywords: cultural studies; opium; pharmakon; detective novel;
Summary/Abstract: A textbook case of a pharmakon, opium turned from a panacea to a dangerous narcotic in just two centuries. The history of opium, like that of tobacco, illuminates the complex relationships between Europe and its others: brought from East Asia already endowed with an aura of exotic Orientalism, it soon turned into a cure-all. Prescribed by doctors for every kind of pain, even to small children, laudanum (opium tincture) became the favourite medicine of both the low and the upper classes in the 18th century. In Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, De Quincey associates his opium consumption and the development of addiction with the city – and it is a fact that Victorian London was heavily criticized for its opium dens. My paper proposes to investigate the secret paths that led from the city to opium taking and smoking and from opium to the city as they are reflected in the literature of the Romantic and Victorian period.
Journal: Journal of Romanian Literary Studies
- Issue Year: 2017
- Issue No: 11
- Page Range: 375-384
- Page Count: 10
- Language: English