阿片常用者であること,雑誌寄稿者であること : 『阿片常用者の告白』の歴史と文学的環境(I)

Abstract

From the start of his writing career, Thomas De Quincey was so dens ly surrounded by literary culture that it was difficult for him to write as he pleased. He had been forced to meet various editorial requirements and be sensitive to readers' response. This biographical fact should be considered when interpreting the Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and its long history, along with some critical appreciation of the generic characteristics of the Confessions as a work of modern autobiography. In 1821 the Confessions was published in London Magazine, and in a few months it circulated again in a book form. Then, in 1856 the work reappeared in one of the volumes of De Quincey's authorized collected writings. This history of the Confessions is also that of the author's revisionary endeavour, through which the revised version emerged quite differently from the original. And that is where the dynamics of these two vectors one originating from literary culture, and the other from the author's concern over his future identity as a writer holds a special significance for the Confessions itself. After working as the editor of a local periodical, The Westmorland Gazette. De Quincey composed the Confessions, and the work could be regarded as a typical article f r his contemporary magazines especially in view of its anonymous publication, and ample quotations from both classical and contemporary literature as well as philosophical knowledge scattered 'throughout it. However, viewed with wider perspective not only upon the literary culture but the work's autobiographical theme, the Confessions has noteworthy characteristics which might bring the author from his strictly conditioned status as a magazine contributor into the more genuine field for writers with abilities to produce original literary works. And it was his extraordinary opium experiences which could make the transition possible. The Confessions of 1821 does hot tell whether it will happen or not, and the question remains to be answered till the time when the history of the work unfolds.