Cross-Cultural Confessions: America Passes Judgement on Thomas De Quincey Symbiosis 3.2 (October 1999) 119-130

About

This essay on Thomas de Quioncey's American reception was first published in Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations

 Essay Excerpt 

"Why were the writings of a decidedly British opium addict so popular in an America just emerging from its Puritan past? Grevel Lindop suggests that nineteenth-century Americans eagerly read and looked upon British writings as models of literary excellence. Suspecting that their own literature lacked polish, the more discriminating American readers placed a particularly high value upon style, and now that Suspiria de Profundis had crossed the Atlantic there were few American writers of any caliber who did not regard De Quincey as a master.

Yet in the 1850s, when Thomas De Quincey’s Suspiria de Profundis as well as his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater became widely available to American readers, the spirit of nationalism was peaking in the United States, a national literature of considerable value had flowered, and the growing literate public had acquired an appreciation of novels and poems that celebrated American settings and American ideals. De Quincey’s American contemporaries were determined to speak in and to listen to new and different voices; their goal was as much the establishment of an original American literary heritage as a distinctively un-British one.

Recognizing the ageing Tory as a ‘master’ was thus not the intent of a large part of the American reading public. Instead, what may account for De Quincey’s immense popularity overseas was America’s curiosity and feelings of superiority over this particularly needy though nevertheless representative Englishman. American reviewers consistently emphasized De Quincey’s status as a dependent, which was as much truth as it was wish fulfilment for many Americans still bearing ill will towards their former oppressors. Not only was the opium addict at the mercy of one of the tools of his beloved British imperialism; he was also dependent upon the American publishing industry and the American public at large for the establishment of his long-term popularity on either side of the Atlantic."

Thomas De Quincey, Suspiria de Profundis, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, William D. Ticknor, Boston publishing, North American Review, Atlantic Monthly, First Opium War, J. T. Fields

Recommended Reading

"Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" by Thomas De Quincey - The seminal work discussed in Karbiener's essay, offering firsthand insight into De Quincey's experiences.

"The American Scholar" by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Emerson's famous lecture that called for American intellectual independence, referenced in the essay.

"The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815-1830" by Paul Johnson - A comprehensive look at the period that contextualises De Quincey's life and works.

"Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman - An essential work of American literature from the same period, reflecting the burgeoning American literary identity.

"The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism" edited by Stuart Curran - Provides background on the literary movement that influenced De Quincey and his contemporaries. ​