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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