As readers of this blog know, I was often in my wilder years a most indiscreet fellow. So I am better acquainted with opiates than most people. For that reason, I have long thought the connection between Coleridge's poetry and his drug use was far more tenuous than staid scholars imagine. Nobody writes anything of worth while high. You may get some thoughts and images that can prove of use later if you have the presence of mind and the energy to note them down. But it is unlikely that anyone zonked on opiates would ever think to exert himself sufficiently to write down much of anything.
Agreed.
ReplyDeletei've heard critics theorize that Joyce wrote "Finnegan's Wake" the way he did because he was going nuts from the syphillis. I think that's equally bunk.