Opium of the masses

This post is neither about Marx nor about religion..I have been reading on opiate literature including Baudelaire and DeQuincy. Theirs seems to be a genre completely different from Castenada and Huxley. Hallucinogenic substances have created a large body of literature.I think the human mind wants to dissect what exactly it goes through under the influence of these substances and time after time brilliant minds have become obsessed with this subject.

The introduction being made, in the course of my (ahem purely theoritical I assure you) research I came across this rather strange site called Supervert. This word supervert almost seemed to me like an amalgamation of the sanskrt prefix 'Su' meaning good, auspicious etc and the english word pervert.The reason for this linguistic explanation is that the site seemed to distinguish the kinds of perversion.Seeking Porn versus reading literature of the nether-land genres. (And yes I skipped the other "come hither" attractions on the site that links to books on necrophilia, Extraterrestrial sex fetish or even De Sade and Bataille) .The best thing about this site was the disclaimer at the bottom.They proudly redirect you to porn and say titillation was not the intended purpose of the site.Makes me ask this weird philosophical conundrum.So does sensual stimulation alone constitute porn? Why is intellectual titillation/ stimulation considered superior? If both are organs - made of flesh and blood why is the body considered lower in status than the mind??

All that aside, there were a few really good materials available in their elibrary. Among them were the works of De Quincy and Gottfried Benn there. Several of the works of the Ricardian school follower, Thomas De Quincy. Their views of early economic thought is another interesting area itself.A very nice piece from Pushkin,

Theocritus and Homer bored him;
If true delight you would afford him
You'd give him Adam Smith to read.
A deep economist, indeed,
He talked about the wealth of nations;
The state relied, his friends were told,
Upon its staples, not on gold --
This subject filled his conversations.
His father listened, frowned and groaned,
And mortgaged all the land he owned."

(Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin, 1833: 1.VII)

Of course De quincy has been made notorious by that infamous piece of work titled, "Confessions of an English opium eater" and they have the work as a downloadable book.The title seemed to indicate that an English Opium Eater was somehow different from a French Opium Eater and I leave that rumination aside for the time being.

What I did not know about him (well I do not know many things, so that is no surprise) was his literary merits.There is an exquisite satirical piece of his "On Murder considered as one of the fine arts".And another article "Literature of knowledge vs Literature of Power" .I think that distinction still holds good. While I was able to enjoy the black humour, I found the artistocratic,obviously heavy (wordsworthian perhaps) style a little annoying. My personal opinionated opinion is that I find British authors and poets a little too smug.

Gottfried Benn is another author largely ignored by the populace.Some of his works are also listed there and make for good reading.The site also has Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal.Being subject to Censorship whichever century it is does not sound go.This translation sounded very metrically pleasing to me.

Packed tight, like hives of maggots, thickly seething
Within our brains a host of demons surges.
Deep down into our lungs at every breathing,
Death flows, an unseen river, moaning dirges.