Mangiatori d'oppio - Tesina per Liceo Linguistico

Istituto : San Giuseppe del Caburlotto

“Ora io sprofondo il più possibile nella dissolutezza.

Perché ?

Io voglio essere poeta, e mi adopero per divenire veggente

[...]

Si tratta di giungere all’ignoto attraverso la sregolatezza di

tutti i sensi.

Affermo che occorre essere veggenti, rendersi veggenti.

Il poeta si trasforma in veggente attraverso una lunga,

immensa e volontaria sregolatezza di tutti i sensi [...]

Perché così egli arriva all’ignoto !”

Arthur Rimbaud 2

Coleridge

“He prayeth best, who loveth best, All things both great and small; For the

dear God who loveth us, he made and loveth all”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge belong the first wave of romantic poets in 19 th

century and he is considered with Wordsworth the founder of the Romantic

Movement in England.

Throughout his adult life, Coleridge suffered from crippling bouts of

anxiety and depression; it has been speculated by some that he suffered

from bipolar disorder, a condition as yet unidentified during his lifetime.

Coleridge suffered from poor health that may

have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever

and other childhood illnesses. He was treated for

these concerns with laudanum, which fostered a

lifelong opium addiction. Opium unfortunately

cause him continuous mood swings which made

him fight with everyone, including Wordsworth.

He decided to be hospitalized in the clinic of Dr.

Gilman and fortunately his health improved,

allowing him to work above all as journalist and

literary critic. He spent the last years of his life in London, where he died in

1834, surrounded by friends and disciples.

He is probably best known for his poems The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner,

Kubla Khan, and his major prose work Biographia Literaria.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

It’s his longest poem, written when he was asleep under the effect of the

opium and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Along

Lyrical Ballads,

with other poems in it was a signal shift to modern poetry

and the beginning of British Romantic Literature.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner relates the experiences of a sailor who

has returned from a long sea voyage. The Mariner stops a man who is on

the way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The

Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience and fear

to fascination as the Mariner's story progresses, as can be seen in the

3

language style: for example, Coleridge uses narrative techniques such as

personification and repetition to create either a sense of danger, of the

supernatural or of serenity, depending on the mood of each of the

different parts of the poem.

The Mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite

initial good fortune, the ship is driven south off course by a storm and

eventually reaches Antartica. An albatross appears and leads them out of

the Antarctic but, even as the albatross is praised by the ship's crew, the

Mariner shoots the bird ("with my cross-bow / I shot the albatross").

The crew is angry with the Mariner,

believing the albatross brought the south

wind that led them out of the Antarctic.

However, the sailors change their minds

when the weather becomes warmer and the

mist disappears ("Twas right, said they, such

birds to slay / that bring the fog and mist").

When the wind began to disappears, the

angry crew forces the Mariner to wear the

dead albatross about his neck, perhaps to

illustrate the burden he must suffer from

killing it, or perhaps as a sign of regret.

Eventually, the ship encounters a ghostly vessel. On board are Death (a

skeleton) and the "Night-mare Life-in-Death" (a deathly-pale woman), who

are playing dice for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the dice, Death

wins the lives of the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of the

Mariner, a prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the

Mariner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for

his killing of the albatross.

One by one, all of the crew members die, but the Mariner lives on, seeing

for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses,

whose last expressions remain upon their faces. Eventually, the Mariner's

curse is temporarily lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the

water. Despite his cursing them as "slimy things" earlier in the poem, he

suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them; suddenly, as he

manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially

expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and

steer the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the

Mariner behind.

A hermit on the mainland had seen the approaching ship and had come to

meet it with a pilot and the pilot's boy in a boat. When they pull him from

4

the water, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot

has a fit. The hermit prays, and the Mariner picks up the oars to row. The

pilot's boy goes crazy and laughs, thinking the Mariner is the devil, and

says, "The Devil knows how to row".

As penance for shooting the albatross, the Mariner, driven by guilt, is

forced to wander the earth, tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he

meets. After relating the story, the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest

returns home, and wakes the next morning "a sadder and a wiser man".

The poem on the surface explores violation of nature and its

resulting psychological effects on the Mariner, who interprets the

fates of his crew to be a direct result of his having shot down an

albatross. Although the poem is often read as a

Christian allegory, Jerome McGann argues that it is really a story

our of

of salvation Christ, rather than the other way round.

In his 1946-47 essay "The Mariner and the Albatross", George Whalley

suggests that the Ancient Mariner is an autobiographical portrait of

Coleridge himself, comparing the Mariner's loneliness with Coleridge's own

feelings of loneliness expressed in his letters and journals.

Novalis

“La poesia sana le ferite inferte dall’intelletto. Essa è appunto formata da

elementi contrastanti da una verità sublime e da un piacevole inganno.”

Nessun poeta romantico tedesco è tanto sognatore quanto Friedrich von

terra nuova”),

Hardenberg, in arte Novalis (dal latino “ un animo sempre

pronto a cogliere il mondo oltre la sua apparenza per contemplarlo in

chiave mistica.

La sua vita e la sua opera sono un sogno a occhi aperti, un’unica

esperienza dolorosamente visionaria e di contemplazione mistica del

mondo in cui vive: in Novalis, infatti, poesia e filosofia sono

essenzialmente la stessa cosa e l’una non può esistere senza l’altra.

L’episodio di svolta nella sua vita e nella sua poetica è la morte della

ragazza tanto amata: da quel momento, il poeta dolente sottopone

continuamente alla propria riflessione la fondamentale componente

5

filosofica, che arricchirà di un originalissimo fascino meditativo i suoi

componimenti.

Heinrich von Ofterdingen

Il romanzo racchiude uno dei concetti e delle

immagini sostanziali della vita-sogno di Novalis: quel tendere,

particolarmente romantico, all’infinito, ragione di un percorso interiore ed

esteriore, attraverso il tempo e l’anima, per giungere a cospetto

dell’Amore e trasmettere, a sé e al lettore, la forza vitale dell’amore e

della vita.

Heinrich Von Ofterdingen

Dieser Roman, spielt im Mittelalter, erzählt von der Einführung ins Leben

des jungen Heinrich von Ofterdingen. Am Anfang der Geschichte erzählt

ein Fremder Heinrich von geheimnisvollen Orten und einer blauen Blume.

Wenn diese wunderbare Blume (die Quintessenz der intuitiven

menschlichen Fähigkeit, die Realität und Sehnsucht alle romantischen

Wünschen die erlauben die Unendlichkeit zu verstehen) ihm im Traum

erscheint und sie verwandelt sich ins Gesicht eines Mädchens, versteht

Heinrich das Ziel seines Lebens, das heißt die Berufung zur Poesie und

Liebe.

Er ist von dieser Vision geführt und Heinrich beginnt seine Reise, die durch

Erzählungen und Dialogen zur Kenntnis seiner Liebe und seiner Zeit

bringen werden: zum Beispiel die wunderbare Welt der Urgeschichte, des

Fernostens und des Krieges.

Am Ende seiner Reise, lernt er den Dichter Henry Klingsohr und seine

Tochter Mathilde kennen. Klingsohr lässt ihn das Wesen der Poesie

verstehen, und Mathilde, (in dem Heinrich das Gesicht des Mädchens

erkennt, das im Kern der blauen Blume erschienen war), bringt ihm bei

was Liebe ist. Das Märchen, das am Ende des ersten Teils von Klingsohr

erzählt wird, bringt das unvollendete zweite Teil ein das mit der

endgültigen Aufhebung der Grenzen zwischen Realität und Traum, einen

märchenhaften Charakter eingenommen hat.

Nach Mathildes Tod, betritt Heinrich das Reich der Toten, um sie zu suchen.

Dann wird er an die Rasse der Sänger auf der Wartburg aufgenommen. Er

wird Dichter gekrönt und kann endlich aus der Welt des Zwangs der Zeit

und Raum raus. Aber all dies wird geschehen, nur wenn er das Hofleben,

6

die Kriegführung und die Epochen der menschlichen Geschichte

kennenlernen wird. Und auch wenn er die Seelenwanderung erreichen

wird.

Im ersten Teil des Textes kann der Traum als Taubheit interpretiert werden,

während das Wachen die Verherrlichung der Vernunft ist: "völlig wach zu

sein“ erlaubt zur Aussenwelt völlig aufnahmebereit zu sein.

Die blaue Blume ist eine Metapher für das

romantische Ideal, und fasst an sich alle

Formen der Erkenntnis um, die der Mensch

erwerben muss um die Perfektion zu

erreichen. Es ist eine Reifung , die durch die

Anregung entsteht. Und das bedeutet seine

Geschichte zu rekonstruieren.

Um den Roman zu verstehen muss sich der

Leser einfühlen, weil es der einzige Weg ist,

um die Worte und Emotionen des Charakters zu verstehen.

Am Ende des unvollendeten Romans hätte Heinrich sicherlich die "blaue

Blume" gefangen, und sich mit Matilda in der grossen und universalen

Synthese von Natur und spirituellem Bereich wieder vereint.

Baudelaire

“Orrenda è la sorte dell’uomo la cui immaginazione, paralizzata, non sia

più in grado di funzionare senza il soccorso dell’hashish o dell’oppio.”

L’œuvre de Baudelaire, dans son romantisme exacerbé et sombre, située

au seuil de la modernité poétique, expose longuement le déchirement

d’un individu, pris dans le mouvement contradictoire entre le bien et le

mal, la laideur et la beauté, Dieu et Satan, l’enfer et le ciel, la félicité et

la douleur.

La poésie de Baudelaire est de facture classique, utilisant les artifices

traditionnels du vers, et de l’alexandrin en particulier.

Les Paradis artificiels

Il est un essai de Charles Baudelaire paru en 1860, où le poète traite de la

relation entre les drogues et la création poétique. Baudelaire met

cependant en question l'intimité du lien qui pourrait exister entre les

drogues et le poète, le poète véritable n'ayant pas besoin de drogues pour

trouver l'inspiration.

L'ouvrage de Baudelaire est structuré en deux

Le poème du

parties. La première partie, intitulée 7

haschisch, est un essai sur le haschisch. Le poète y mêle des observations

sur la prise de la drogue par ses amis ainsi que par lui-même avec des

passages à la vocation pharmacologique,

psychologique ou métaphysique. « Confessions d’un

La seconde partie est un commentaire du livre

anglais mangeur d’opium » de Thomas de Quincey paru en 1821.

Pour l'écriture de cette partie, Baudelaire oscille entre passages traduits,

commentaires littéraires, philosophiques et biographiques.

Sur un style analytique, Baudelaire y décrit de façon clinique les effets des

drogues. S'inspirant de son expérience, il y transcrit l'idée que la drogue

permet aux hommes de se transcender pour rejoindre l'idéal auquel ils

aspirent.

Et pourtant Baudelaire n’était pas un grand consommateur de drogues. Il

l’hôtel Pimodan,

découvre le haschisch à s’abandonne quelques temps aux

délices de « cette pommade verdâtre », mais n’en abuse pas. Gautier

prétend même que le poète s’est surtout contenté d’observer lors de ces

séances du « Club des Haschischins ».

L’opium lui était plus familier, sous la forme du laudanum prescrit pour