Page:Drug Themes in Fiction (Research Issues 10).djvu/12

 periodically in later centuries. These symbols of exoticism hinted particularly to the 19th century French writers at a bizarre way of life, much as the "exotic Negro subculture" has titillated 20th century American intellectuals. And, much as our drug culture of the American fifties was accompanied by Zen Buddhism, late 19th century France was inundated by various esoteric philosophies that sought the Greater Reality and universal correspondences. The Romantic era saw drugs flourishing in a world of semi-mystics, occultists, magnetists, and spiritualists.

Secondly, the 19th century drug poets suggested a Romantic vogue for spiritual transcendence and mystical escape from the ugly world of scientific reality and rational limitations. This yearning quickly translated itself in the form of Transcendentalism in 19th century America. "Perhaps its most important use, however, was as a means of presenting the world as a place in which one cannot really find reality. It has been used effectively by authors in connection with a character who participates in two distinct existences, both of which appear to be authentic." (Mickel, p. 348.)

Finally, the French Romantics explored one of the least noted areas of drug use in literature (and one with great potential for contemporary examination): the effect of the drug experience upon aesthetic sensibilities. offers extensive insight into drug imagery and drug-influenced aesthetics in Baudelaire. But the list of French writers and painters of that era whose work was undoubtedly influenced by the use of opium or hashish includes Lamartine, Nodier, Musset, Hegesippe Moreau, Murger, Grandville, Nerval, Balzac, Barbey d'Aurvilly, Sue, Boissard, Karr, Gautier, Dumas, and Hugo.

Early in the twentieth century, literary continuations of the themes explored by both the drug-using French and English writers (e.g., Samuel Coleridge and Thomas De Quincey) continue to be manifest in English language fiction. Joseph Hergesheimer's (1919) is a popular novel of the period which indicates the continued association of drug use with exoticism. The theme of this work involves Chinese immigrants and their use of opium as a cultural curiosity, rather than a decadent delight. This same "Kubla Khan" attitude is expressed in Aleister Crowley's novel (1922), Crowley, who was an eccentric English outcast given to sexual excesses and rites of black magic, saw in his use of heroin a plunge into an illicit experience which enriched and strengthened the personality. is allegedly based upon an actual situation in which Crowley took a group of drug addicts to an abbey in Sicily where they were allowed to indulge their drug needs to the fullest. Crowley's Romantic attitude is evident in the following