Jean Genet and George Querelle: A Quest For Identity

New School
Drugs and Inspiration

Author(s): A. ALVAREZ
Source: Social Research, Vol. 68, No. 3, Altered States of Consciousness (FALL 2001), pp. 779-793
Published by: New School
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Drugs and
Inspiration / BY A. ALVAREZ
A want to discusstwo periods in Englishliteraturewhen drugs

and inspirationseemed to go together.The firstwas the Roman-
tics' furtiveflirtationwithopium around the close of the eigh-
teenthcentury;the second was in the 1950s and 1960s,when the
Beatniksbecame infatuatedwithwhat theyoptimistically called
"mind-enhancing" drugs.The writers'attitudesto drugs,the way
they used them, and the effecttheirhabitshad on theirworkwere
all verydifferent,but the mostbasic differencewas in the legality
of the drugsthemselves.For the Romantics,opium was ethically
neutral;itwasjust anothermedicinewithunexpectedside effects.
For the Beats, the ultimatecharmof dope was thatit was a "con-
trolledsubstance,"and to use it was a politicalstatement,a ges-
tureof defiance.
In her fascinatingbook, Opiumand theRomanticImagination,

AltheaHayterexplains,in greatdetail,thatthe use of opium as a
painkillerand soporificis literallyas old as the practiceof medi-
cine: "In an Egyptianmedical treatiseof the sixteenthcentury
B.C., Theban physicianswere advised to prescribeopium forcry-
ing childrenjust as, three and a half millennia later,Victorian
babies were dosed with the opiate Godfrey'sCordial by their
nursesto keep them quiet" (Hayter,1968: 19). Opium was used
by doctors in classical Greece and ancient Rome; Galen pre-
scribedit,Virgilmentionedit in the Aeniadand the Georgics; Arab
physicians used it- Avicenna is said to have been an addict- and
SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Fall 2001)
780 SOCIAL RESEARCH
the Crusaderspickedit up fromthemand broughtit back to

Europe,whereit becamea standardmedicine.It is mentioned
not onlyfamously by Shakespearein Othello - "Not poppynor
mandragora / Norall thedrowsy syrupsoftheworld/ Shallever
medicinethee to thatsweetsleep / Whichthou owedstyester-
day"- butalso byChaucer,SirThomasBrowne,and RobertBur-
ton. Hayterquotes a slightlydottyDoctorJohnJones who
publisheda bookin 1700called TheMysteries ofOpiumReveaVd in
whichhe claimedit could cureor relieve"gout,dropsy, catarrh,
ague, asthma, fevers of all kinds, travel sickness, stone,colic,
measles,rheumatism, and even plague, as well as psychological
troubleslikehypochondria and insomnia.He listedthedifferent
preparations of opiumthenin use: VeniceTreacle,Mithridate,
Sydenham Laudanum,Dr.Bate'sPacificPill,LondonLaudanum,
and so on" (Hayter, 1968:25).
In otherwords,twocenturiesago, opiumwasgenerallyavail-
able as a cureforeverything. Itwaslikeaspirin;everyhousehold
had some,usuallyin theformoflaudanum- thatis,mixedwith
alcohol- and used it as an analgesicforaches and pains,for
hangovers, toothache,and hysteria. Shelleydranklaudanumto
calmhisnervousheadaches,Keatsused itas a painkiller, Byron
tookan opium-basedconcoctioncalledKendalBlackDrop as a
tranquilizer; evenJaneAusten'ssedatemotherprescribeditfor
travelsickness.Wordsworth - not surprisingly - seems to have
been the only major EnglishRomanticpoet never to have
touchedthestuff. It wasalso classlessand cheap,so cheap that
factory workers in the earliest"darksatanicmills"swilledlau-
danumon Saturdaynightsbecauseitcostlessthanbooze, even
in thedaysofGinLane whenyoucould get"drunkfora penny,
dead drunkfortuppence."WhenMarxcalledreligion"theopi-
ate of the masses,"the masseswould have knownwhat he
meant.
Naturally, the generalavailability of opium and the medical
profession's enthusiasm for it helped createaddicts,some of
themveryfamous:Clive of India, for example,and William
DRUGS AND INSPIRATION 781
Wilberforce, thegreatemancipator. Amongtheliterary addicts,

Coleridgeand De Quincywere the best known,but theyalso
includedthatmostsoberpoet,GeorgeCrabbe.(Oddlyenough,
WilliamBlake,the hippies'hero,was not an opium-eater; but
then, he was so eccentric thathe started
where opium leftoff.)
All,however, wereaddictsdespitethemselves, notbydesignbut
bymistake, bymisfortune, bychance.Ata timewhendoctorshad
no conceptofaddiction,therewasnothingto alerttheirpatients
to thedangersofthepatentmedicinestheyprescribed or to pre-
pare themforthe side effects. As a result,therewas no more
stigma attached to theopium habitthanto alcoholism;itwasan
unfortunate weakness, nota vice.
ItalsofittedinwiththeRomantics' newfound absorption in the
innerworld.To simplify the
grossly, Romantic movement began
aroundthe timeof theFrenchRevolutionand, likethe revolu-
tion,itwasfoundedon an idea offreedom - a freedomtofeel,to
reactin a personaland unpredictable way,withoutreferenceto
classicalprecedent.WhenPope, forexample,talkedabout "the
World"he meantpolitesociety;for Shelleythe worldusually
meantuntamednaturewitha shivering at itscenter.I
sensibility
am talking abouta profoundshiftoffocus,awayfromestablished
Augustancertainties and towardsubjective experience.Geniusas
we nowunderstandit is a whollyRomanticconcept:notjust a
greatartistbuta greatartistwhohas embarkedon an innerjour-
neyand makeshisownrulesas he goes- Beethovenratherthan
Haydn,RousseauratherthanDr.Johnson,Rimbaudratherthan
Pope.
The essenceof Romanticgeniusis revelation and the exulta-
tionand certainty thatgo withit. (ThinkofWordsworth at Tin-
ternAbbey,Keatsand the GrecianUrn,or even "stoutCortez"
gazingout overthePacificwith"a wildsurmise.")Butrevelation
cannotbe willedor workedfor;it is morelikea blessing,some-
thing that mighthappen to you if you live right.Hence
Coleridge'scuriously passiveimagein "Dejection:An Ode" ofthe
poetas an Aeolianharpblownuponbyforcesbeyondhiscontrol.
782 SOCIAL RESEARCH
This is inspirationin the mostliteralsenseand, ifit cannotbe

deliberatelyorderedup, it can at leastbe provokedand encour-
aged. Hence the opium. Hence, too, the preoccupationwith
dreams(thinkof "La Belle Dame sans Merci")or rather,with
nightmares. AllyoungRomantics, good and bad,giftedand fool-
ish,werebesottedwithwhatShelleycalled"thetempestuous love-
linessofterror."Goyasaid "thesleepofreasonbreedsmonsters"
and theRomantics wentto greatlengthstowakethosemonsters.
Forexample,thepainterFuseliguzzledplatefuls ofrawmeatand
rotting foodlateat nightin orderto provokenightmares; so did
Anne Radcliffe, who wroteTheMysteries ofUdolpho, one of the
mostfamousofall Gothicnovels;so didmanyotherlesserfigures.
The artistsgave themselves bad dreamsand indigestion in the
nameofinspiration in thesamehopefulmasochistic spiritas the
youngwomenof the timetorturedthemselves in the name of
High Romance: they drank vinegar and sucked lead pencilsto
maketheirfacespale and melancholy, dilatedtheirpupilswith
belladonnaforluminouseyes,starvedthemselves and woreiron
corsetsfora sylphlikefigure- all because theywanted tolooklike
theheroinesoftheGothicnovelstheydevoured.
This was the sensationalist side of Romanticism, more to do
withfashionthancreativity, a sad parodyof the seriousartist's
beliefthatdreamingand poeticcreationwereparalleland inter-
changeableworlds, intimately linked.Althoughtheword"uncon-
scious"had not yetenteredthe languagein its modernsense,
poetsbelievedthata hotlineto theirdreamlifewasa necessary
partof theirprofessional equipment.EspeciallyColeridge,who
wasa lifelongmartyr to nightmares thathe wasafraid
so terrible
to sleep and oftenwokeup screaming.These nightmares had
started whenhe wasa smallchildand no doubt,likeothersmall
childrenat thetime,he wasdosedwithsomeopium-based snake
oil to calmhimdown.So whenhe begantakinglaudanumagain
20 yearslater,to curean agonizingeyeinfection, he wouldhave
the
recognized landscape. This was in 1796,when he was 24,
unhappily marriedand suffering froma bad dose ofthewriter's
sicknessthatC. K. Ogden called "hand-to-mouth disease"- lack

of money,deadlines,printer'serrors,anxietyabout the next
book. Fromthenon, he graduallybecame addictedto opium,
whichdulychangedand intensified the nightmares. Coleridge
a
was always wonderfully subtleobserver and interpreter of his
ownstatesofmind- botha psychoanalyst and an analysandavant
- and partof his geniuswas his abilityto use his under-
la lettre
life- hisdreamsand anxieties,and alsohisprodigious learning -
notjustforimagesbutas a sourceofpoetry, as a wayofre-creating
thestrangeness of the innerworld.Out of his addict'spainsof
sleep he created- implicitly,
thoughnot formally - a new aes-
thetic.In otherwords,forintellectual and highlyself-aware writ-
erslikeColeridge,alteredstatesofconsciousness werea sourceof
freshartistic and
inspiration they had aesthetic consequences.
In theearlystagesofaddictionthelinkwasobviousand fruit-
ful. Coleridge'sfamousdescriptionof the genesisof "Kubla
Khan"is at once a paradigmof Romanticinspiration and also,
incidentally,a mostseductivecome-onfortheuse of drugsas a
shortcut to creativity:
In consequenceof a slightindisposition,
an anodynehad
been prescribed,fromtheeffects ofwhichhe fellasleepin
hischairat themomentwhenhe wasreadingthefollowing
sentence.. .in "Purchas'sPilgrimage":"Here the Kubla
Khancommandeda palacetobe built,and a stately garden
thereunto.And thus ten miles of fertileground were
enclosedwitha wall."The Authorcontinuedfor about
threehoursin a profoundsleep,at leastof the external
senses,duringwhichtimehe hasthemostvividconfidence,
thathe could not have composedless thanfromtwoto
threehundredlines;ifthatindeedcouldbe calledcompo-
sitionin whichall theimagesroseup beforehimas things,
witha parallelproduction ofthecorrespondentexpression,
without any sensationor consciousness
of effort.
On awak-
eninghe appearedto have a distinctrecollectionof the
784 SOCIAL RESEARCH
whole,and takinghis pen, ink,and paper,instantly

and
eagerlywrotedown the lines that are here preserved
(Coleridge,1957:296).
The resultingpoem is a primeexampleofwhatFreudcalled
"dreamwork":condensationand elision,thoughtsexpressedas
"things,"
thinking as in a charade,all ofit
actedoutdramatically
dredgedup fromtheunconscious and drenchedwithfeelingand
As
significance. I wrotein my book Night,
an old-fashioned Freudiancouldhavea field-day withthe
"cavernsmeasurelessto man" and the "sunlesssea," the
walledparadisegarden,"thatdeep romantic chasm"witha
"mighty fountain" spurtingfrom it,the"demon lover"and
"ancestralvoices."Buttheprimalscenewasnot,I think, the
Coleridgehad (evenunconsciously)
onlycreativity in mind.
The landscapeof "KublaKhan"sounds,instead,verylike
the poetic imaginationas he later describedit in the
famouschapters ofhisBiographia as a river,
Literaria: a living
forcethat"dissolves,diffuses, in orderto re-cre-
dissipates,
ate"or,as he depictedShakespeare'sgenius,as tworivers,
his creativepowersand his intellectualenergy,"that,at
theirfirstmeetingwithin narrowand rockybanks,mutually
striveto repeleach otherand intermix reluctantly and in
tumult;butsoonfinding a widerchanneland moreyielding
shoresblend,and dilate,and flowon in one currentand
withone voice."In otherwords,in thesamewayas dreams
are oftenabout themselves and the processof dreaming,
"KublaKhan"can be read as a dreampoem aboutpoetry
and thepoeticimagination (Alvarez,1995:184-5).
Although "Kubla Khan" was a one-off phenomenon,

Coleridgelearnedfromit and it had a profoundeffecton the
two great poems that followed."The AncientMariner"and
"Christabel"are steeped in hallucinationand dreams:night-
mareshiftsoffocusliketheswift, secret,chillingtransformation
ofthefaceof"thelovelyladyGeraldine"intoa serpent's("One
moment - and thesightwasfled!"),or oftheocean intoa putrid
pond ("The verydeep did rot:O Christ!/ Thateverthisshould
be! / Yea, slimythingsdid crawlwithlegs / Upon the slimy
sea."); also hallucinatory
distortionsof timeand place, such as
the Mariner'seternity becalmed,thenhis seemingly overnight
flitfromthePacificto England.Coleridge'snotebooksare full
ofshrewdcommentson "thelanguageofDream= Night[and]
thatofWaking= Day,"and he had a geniusforusinghisexperi-
encesunderopiumto fusetogetherwhathe called theegodiur-
nusand the egonocturnus, the day-selfand the night-self.
The
resultwasa genuinely alteredstateofaestheticconsciousness, a
precursorofthesystematic deregulationofthesensesthatRim-
baud talkedaboutlater.
These threegreatpoems werewrittenduringthe relatively
blissfulhoneymoon periodwhenopiumwasstilla sourceofinspi-
rationforColeridge,an enablerofhisimagination. The dreams
thatcamelater,whenhe wasseriously addicted,werealtogether
more threatening and unforgiving,like thosedescribedby De
Quincyin TheConfessions
ofan EnglishOpium-Eater.
The habit had
killedwhatColeridgecalledhis"shapingspiritofimagination" -
his emotionalenergy, his delightin poetry,
his appetiteforlife.
He wroteone greatpoem,"Dejection,"about the innerdesola-
tionthatdrugaddictioncreates,then,despitereamsofindiffer-
entverse,he turnedmostly to prose.Buthe knewprecisely what
he had lost.In 1815,withall his greatpoemsbehindhim,he
wrotein his notebook,"Ifa man could pass thro'Paradisein a
Dream& havea flower presentedtohimas a pledgethathisSoul
had reallybeen there,and foundthatflower in hishandwhenhe
awoke- Aye!and whatthen?"I thinktheparadisehe wastalking
aboutwastheperiodofseemingly effortless
opium-fueled inspi-
rationand thegreatpoemshe producedin hisyouthful prime.
Andtheflower in hishandwasa poppy.
786 SOCIAL RESEARCH
//
To repeat:Becauseopium-based medicineswerecommonplace
at the end of the eighteenth century, theycame withoutmoral
baggage; like the
alcohol, stigma was in theexcessiveuse,notin
thedrugsthemselves. Coleridgemayhaveendedup as an addict
butonlybyaccidentand he wasnotinitially interested in opium
inorforitself. Likeanywriter, ofcourse,he wasenraptured bythe
idea ofblissful,effortless inspiration,buthe wasinterested even
-
morein thestatesofminddrugsproduced insights, images,hal-
lucinations,and all the other strange mental disjunctions that
werepartofthemystery oftheselftheRomantics, at theend of
the classical
eighteenth century, suddenly to explore.
were free
The Beatniksattitudeto drugswasaltogether different.It had
notmuchto do withaesthetics and a greatdeal to do withpoli-
tics,thoughmaybe not quite we now rememberthem.We
as
thinkofthe1960sas thedecadewhendrugsbecamethecommon
cause thatseparatedtheyoungfromtheold, but thisis neither
norhistorically
strictly true.The Beatnikshelpedcreatethedrug
culturethatclimaxedduringthelatterstagesoftheVietnamWar,
buttheBeatgeneration tookoffin thepreviousdecade,dur-
itself
ingtheplacid,prosperous yearsofEisenhower's presidency, when
thedomesticissuethatprovokedgreatest anxietyamongintellec-
tualswas conformism. In MaryMcCarthy's words,"We are a
nationof 20 millionbath tubs,witha humanistin everytub"
(McCarthy, 1962: 18). I do not happento believethatthe time
wasas conformist as it wassaid to be. I myself remember it- at
leastin NewYork,ifnotat Oxford - as a periodofintenseintel-
lectualexcitement and argument. Butat theheightof theCold
Warand McCarthyism, politicswasa no-goarea,so theargument
had shifted from politicsto literature, fromMarxismto theNew
Criticism.
The toneofvoice,however, wasverysimilar.The NewCritics
saw themselves as beingin oppositionto the old appreciators.
WilliamEmpsonputitbest:"Critics as 'barkingdogs'.. .areoftwo
sorts:thosewho merelyrelievethemselves againsttheflowerof

beauty,and those,less continent, who afterwards scratchit up"
(Empson, 1949:9). Instead ofthrowing up theirhands and saying
"Magic!"whenconfronted withgreatliterature, theytriedto talk
rationallyabout the irrationaland intenselysubjectiveexperience
ofreading,tofindreasonswhytheselineswerebetterthanthose,
toexplainhowtheyworked, and whytheywere- orwerenot- so
moving.Theyvaluedsensibility butrefusedto believethatitpre-
cludedintelligent argument.
Thiswasfartoo intellectual fortheBeatwriters. Theywerein
revoltagainstthehigh-minded '50s- determinedly anti-intellec-
tual,anti-aesthetic,anti-everything theNewCriticsand thegreat
Modernists like
theyrevered, EliotandJoyce,believedin. That,I
think,is whyGinsbergchose to writelikeWhitman. PhilipRahv
had written a famousessayabout the twoopposinggroupsof
American writers,"Palefaceand Redskin"he calledthem,theaes-
thetesand thewildmen,Bostonand thefrontier, patricianand
plebeian,"the drawing-room fictionsof HenryJamesand the
air
open poems of Walt Whitman" (Rahv,1957:1). So towritein
thebardicstyleofWhitman orWilliamBlake'sProphetic Booksat
a timewhenmostotherpoetswerestruggling withthe inheri-
tanceofJohnDonne and T. S. Eliotwasa gestureofdefiance.
Asgestures went,however, itwastoo restricted, tooliteraryand
academic.Gihsberghad been broughtup among Bohemian
Marxists- hisfatherwasa poet and a socialist, hisschizophrenic
-
motherwas a communistand he called himself"a political
[poet] or a visionary activist"(Ginsberg,1996: 339). In 1958,
whentheBeat Generationwasgrabbingtheheadlines,Norman
Mailerremarked, "The beatnik - oftenJewish - comesfromthe
middle-class, and 25 yearsago would have joined the YCL"
(Mailer, 1960: 335). SincetheYoungCommunist League wasno
an
longer option and, withJoeMcCarthy on theprowl,capitalism
wasa touchysubject,thenextbesttargetwashighbrow art,and
the equivalentof radical politicswas dope. "Howl" famously
begins,"I sawthebestmindsofmygeneration destroyed bymad-
788 SOCIAL RESEARCH
ness,starving hysterical naked,/ draggingthemselves through

thenegrostreets at dawnlookingforan angryfix.. . ." (Ginsberg,
1987: 126). I remembersomeone remarking at the time,"It
makesyouwonderwhomhe met."In fact,Ginsbergstudiedat
ColumbiaunderLionelTrilling, so he musthaveknownplentyof
cleverpeople,buttheywerenottheoneswhointerested him.He
preferred "angelheadedhipstersburningforthe ancientheav-
enlyconnectionto thestarry dynamoin themachinery ofnight."
He reinvented theaddictsand misfits whowerehisfriendsas a
newproletariat, a spiritualproletariatwitha tasteforEasternmys-
ticism: "Dreamers oftheworldunite.Youhavenothingtolosebut
yourkarma."
It is impossibleto overestimate the anti-intellectualismof the
Beat Generation. They were know-nothings in revoltagainstthe
know-alls and in theirwaragainsttheirhighbrow enemiesdope
was the perfectweapon. They regarded it as way of cutting
throughinhibitions at a peculiarly inhibitedtime,but I suspect
thismattered lessthandistancing themselves fromsquaresociety.
Because drugswere"controlledsubstances," whenthoseangel-
headedhipsters turnedon, tunedin,and droppedouttheywere
putting themselves outsidethelaw.Moreimportant, drugsdo not
agree with the intellectual life.To the impartial observer outside
thestonedcircle,themostobviousfeatureofmostdrugsis that
theyare thought constricting ratherthanmindexpanding.Dope
may make you feel good butit killstheconversation stonedead.
JohnBerryman, a chronicalcoholicbuta fierceintellect, wrotein
one ofhisguilt-drenched "DreamSongs,""Thisis notfortears;/
thinking." Butyou cannotthinkwhenyouare stoned.You can-
in
not, fact,register anything muchexceptvaguegoodwill.Simi-
larly,whatcomesacrossmoststrongly inJoanDidion'swonderful
reporton thehippiesofSan Francisco, "Slouching TowardsBeth-
lehem,"washerdismayat themindlessness and sentimentality of
Beatnikexistenceas itwasplayedout on thestreetsofSan Fran-
cisco (1974: 78-110). Like the sad pseudo-Romantics who
devouredGothicnovelsa century and a halfearlier,thelostchil-
drenof HaightAshbury hankeredafterspiritualdramaand sig-

nificance,but lacked the talent,patience,and applicationart
requires, and so had to makedo withfancydressand a pose.
MostBeatliterature is equallymindless.Ginsberg has plentyof
so-calleddrugpoemswithtitleslike"Mescaline," "Lysergic Acid,"
and "A Methedrine Visionin Hollywood," but all theyhave in
commonis slackness.Writing undertheinfluencemeansnever
having to bother with punctuation. The rollcallofimagesmaybe
a littleloopyand theconnections betweenthemhaphazard,but
the tone of voice is curiouslymonotonous:chanting,self-
absorbed,yetparadoxically lackingin inwardness.
I am not suggesting thatexperiencesunder drugshave not
inspired some extraordinary modernwriting.The novels of
RobertStone,forinstance, whowasa paid-upmemberofthe'60s
drugsceneand evenspenttimeon KenKesey'snotorious bus,are
fullof eerie dope-inducedvisionsand are narratedin the sar-
donic,edgystyle,bristling to thepointof paranoia,ofsomeone
whohas takenone bad triptoo many.ButStoneis an artist; he is
not simplyreporting on his drugexperiencesor usingthemto
givehisworkunearnedsignificance: he is expressing themas allu-
sively, and
vividly, dispassionately as he can - usingthem,thatis,
tocreateworksofartinwhichsomeofthecharacters areafflicted
witha dazed, drug-induced fecklessness that has real conse-
quences in a real and unstoned world. No doubtterriblethings
happened to Stone as theyhappened to Coleridge,but both
artists
trytomakesenseofthem,givethemformand significance,
and thereby makethemaesthetically acceptable.
Artistic objectivitywasnota conceptthatinterested theBeats.
For them,thepersonality the
taking drugalways mattered more
thananyworkofart,evenwhenthepersonality's overwhelming
interestis the eliminationof personality. Considerthe case of
WilliamBurroughs,whom Ginsbergand Kerouac genuinely
reveredbecause he had reallydone whattheymostlyposed at
doing.Burroughs, forhispart,althoughhe had a briefcrushon
Ginsberg,seemed in otherwayscontemptuous of the group's
790 SOCIAL RESEARCH
juvenileantics:"Perhapsweeddoes affect thebrainwithconstant

use, or maybetea heads are naturally silly.. . . Tea heads are a
sociablelot. Too sociableformyliking"(Burroughs, 1977: 18).
Thatcomesfrom Junky, Burroughs' autobiographical bookabout
hisyearsas a heroinaddict.It is an extraordinary piece ofwrit-
-
ing cold-eyed, cold-blooded, clear-headed, fullof detailed,slow-
motion descriptionsof the ritualsof drug takingand the
pleasuresand griefsthataccompanyit- all of it done withouta
flicker ofemotion,apartfroma deadpanrelishin theunderworld
he inhabited.
OpiumallowedColeridgeto touchimaginative and emotional
depthsthatwere otherwisemostlyout of his reach. For Bur-
roughs,heroinseemsto have reinforced whathe alreadywas.
he
"Death," writes, "isabsence oflife"(1977:106) and thatiswhat
hisstyleis about,althoughitis notclearifhe made thestyleout
ofhisaddictionor iftheabsenceoflifecamenaturally to him-
thatis,thepsychopath's lackofaffect wassomething he wasborn
toand thejunkechoedit,gaveitmeaning,gaveita literary voice.
He wasbyanystandards, especiallythose of the 1950s, an unusu-
allynastypiece ofwork - a drug-addict, accidental and
wife-killer,
predatory homosexualwitha tasteforveryyoungboys. Junky, In
hisdocumentary recordof thelowerdepthshe swamin,he hats
thecourageofhispsychopathology. He does notsentimentalize,
he does notexcusehimself; simplydescribeshowitwas,and
he
thatgiveshiswriting a strange, affectless purity.
Burroughs claimedhe wasdoingthesamein TheNakedLunch,
whichdeals withsame subjectas Junky and reworksthe same
material, sometimes wordforword.To emphasizeitsobjectivity
thenoveldulycomeswitha learnedappendix - an articlebyBur-
roughs,reprinted fromtheBritish Journal ofAddiction (vol.53,no.
2), inwhichhe liststhemany differentdrugs he has used,reports
on theircharacteristics and effects,and howbesttobreakthevar-
ious addictions.It is all done in a strictly impersonalscientific
manner, like a researcher writingup a series of experiments in
whichhe himself happenedto be thelaboratory animal.
Accordingto Burroughs, "TheNakedLunchis a blueprint,a

.
How-ToBook. .Blackinsectlustsopen intovast,otherplanet
landscapes.. .Abstractconcepts,bareas algebra,narrowdownto
a blackturdor a pairofageingcojones"(1964:222). In practice,
however, he seemsfarlessinterested in theblueprintthanin the
turds,thecojones,and hisjunk-inspired, science-fiction
visionof
anotherplanet,withitsbad smells,ectoplasmicpresences,and
insectlusts.The resultis a novelthatis suitablyshockingin a
childishway - scatological,vicious,paranoid - but has nothing
like the poweror purityof the autobiography. In otherwords,
is the
Junky originalblueprint and a genuine work ofart,and Bur-
roughshimself downgraded itintoa stripcartoonversioncalled
TheNakedLunch.
The keywordis "downgrade." I thinkdowngrading is a process
inherentin thehighlypoliticalattitudeto drugsof the original
Beatniksand theaesthetics, suchas theywere,thatfollowedfrom
them.I do nothappento rateGinsbergas a poet,butthatis not
thepoint.The pointis hislegacy, whathe helpeddo to thearts.I
once attendeda readinghe gaveat SUNYBuffaloin 1966.The
audiencewastoo largefora lecturehall,so he gaveitin thebas-
ketballgym.The p.a. system was notworking, so you could not
hearhim,and thecloudsof pot smokewereso thickyou could
scarcelysee him.Evenso, thekidswerehavinga wonderful time.
He tinkledhis bells and chantedhis poems and the audience
respondedwitha kindofcollective "Wow!"Itwasnotaboutcom-
munication,it was about communion - everyonejoined by a
sense of vaguewell-being, morelike a religiousceremonyor a
politicalrallythana poetryreading.Andthatsuitedtheversejust
fine.There'sno wayyoucan reada Ginsbergpoem on thepage
and get much pleasurefromit. It has to be declaimed,per-
formed. Poetryofthiskindis nota privateexperience, itis a pub-
lic phenomenon, a happening,and- mostimportant ofall- itis
democratically availableto everyone regardlessofcreativeimagi-
nation,intelligence,and technical ability. that,I think,was
And
thesecretof Ginsberg's appeal: he made theaudiencefeelthat
792 SOCIAL RESEARCH
they,too,werebardslikehim,initiates of thesamehip clan.All

thatwasrequiredwasto be there,mellowedout on weedor trip-
pingon LSD, and everyone couldbe a poet,no matterwhether
or nottheyevergotwordsdownon thepage.
The ironyofall thisis thatmindand consciousness wereinfact
verymuchtheconcernofthebestartists in a century thatbegan,
afterall, withFreud'sInterpretation ofDreams.That is whythe
Modernists werepreoccupiedwithexperiment, because experi-
ment,in thearts,alwaysinvolvesan elementofinneror psychic
exploration. You wantto makeit newnotfornovelty's sakebut
because the styleat hand is not adequate to whatyou have to
express.But drugswerenot partof thisaestheticequationand
the kind of experiments undertaken,firstby the greatMod-
ernistsin the firstquarterof the twentieth century, then,after
WorldWarII, bytheabstract expressionistpaintersand bypoets
likeLowell,Berryman and Plath,involvedan inwardjourneyin
whichintelligence, artisticskill,and disciplineweresupremely
important: "Thisis notfortears;thinking." Thisattitudetoward
was
creativity altogether sterner and more demandingthanthe
free-associating"confessional" styleoftheBeatnikswholet it all
hangout anyold wayand baskedin theapplause.I thinkGins-
berg and Companyliterallymeantwhattheysaid when they
talkedaboutthe"counterculture": theyweretruly counter - that
is,against- culture,and weare nowlivingwiththeaestheticcon-
sequencesoftheirantics:poetryas publicentertainment, novels
as stripcartoons.The sillyand sociabletea-heads,whomBur-
roughslookeddownon,werenotultimately as harmlessas they
seemed.Instead,theyturnedout to havebeen precursors ofthe
largerprocessofdumbingdown,bywhich,duringthetwentieth
century,highartwasgradually reducedtojust anotherformof
showbiz wherereputations depend less on talentthanon self-
promotion and marketability,and drugsare notjusta shortcut to
inspiration buta substituteforit.
References
Alvarez,A. Night:NightLife,NightLanguage,Sleep,and Dreams.NewYork:
Norton,1995.
Burroughs,William.TheNakedLunch. London: John Calder, 1964.
.Junky.London: Penguin, 1977.
Coleridge,Samuel Taylor.Poems.Oxford:OxfordUniversity
Press,1957.
Didion, Joan. SlouchingTowardsBethlehem.
Harmondsworth:Penguin,
1974.
Empson,William.SevenTypesofAmbiguity.
London: Chattoand Windus,
1949.
Ginsberg,Allen. Collected
Poems,1947-1980. London: Penguin, 1987.
.Journals.London: renguin, 1996.
Hayter,Althea. Opiumand theRomanticImagination.London: Faber,
1968.
Mailer,Norman.Advertisements . New York:Signet,1960.
forMyself
McCarthy,Mary.On theContrary.
London: WilliamHeinemann, 1962.
Rahv,Philip. Imageand Idea. NewYork:New Directions,1957.

Jean Genet and George Querelle: A Quest For Identity

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New School

Drugs and Inspiration

A want to discusstwo periods in Englishliteraturewhen drugs

In her fascinatingbook, Opiumand theRomanticImagination,

SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Fall 2001)

the Crusaderspickedit up fromthemand broughtit back to

Wilberforce, thegreatemancipator. Amongtheliterary addicts,

This is inspirationin the mostliteralsenseand, ifit cannotbe

sicknessthatC. K. Ogden called "hand-to-mouth disease"- lack

whole,and takinghis pen, ink,and paper,instantly

Although "Kubla Khan" was a one-off phenomenon,

sorts:thosewho merelyrelievethemselves againsttheflowerof

ness,starving hysterical naked,/ draggingthemselves through

drenof HaightAshbury hankeredafterspiritualdramaand sig-

juvenileantics:"Perhapsweeddoes affect thebrainwithconstant

Accordingto Burroughs, "TheNakedLunchis a blueprint,a

they,too,werebardslikehim,initiates of thesamehip clan.All

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