Opium and addiction in a cross-cultural context: De Quincey’s ‘Confessions’ (1821) and the Chinese novel, Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou (Fengyue meng) (c. 1848)

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Kitson, Peter (2021) Opium and addiction in a cross-cultural context: De Quincey’s ‘Confessions’ (1821) and the Chinese novel, Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou (Fengyue meng) (c. 1848). Romanticism, 27 (3). pp. 309-321. ISSN 1354-991X

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Abstract

This essay examines De Quincey’s representation of opium ‘addiction’ in the cross-cultural context of Britain and China in the light of recent revisionist medical discussions of addiction and dependence, and revisionist historical writing about opium use in nineteenth-century China. De Quincey’s representation of the opium user is compared to that of China’s first ‘city novel’, Courtesans and Opium: Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou believed to have been written in 1848 (trans 2009). In this complex fiction, opium smoking is presented as a largely pleasurable and common pastime which has the potential for danger if abused by the unwary. It is not connected with dreams and nightmares, or figured as a stimulus of, or analogy for, the creative imagination. It offers a fascinating view of the leisure world of nineteenth-century China, where recreational opium smoking is common and not problematic when undertaken moderately.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	addict,addiction,china,de quincey,drugs,opium,literature and literary theory ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200/1208
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Research Group
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	08 Jul 2021 00:06
Last Modified:	28 Mar 2025 10:46
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/80430
DOI:	10.3366/rom.2021.0524

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