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/lit/ - Literature

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2485719 No.2485719 [Reply] [Original]

Literature and drugs
How do they work?

>> No.2485724

Creative people are more likely to suffer from depression, and depression can lead to drug and alcohol use.

>> No.2485729

Unfortunately, it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy and (particularly in light of not-even-particularly-good 20th century writers) now 'creative' idiots feel the need to perpetuate the notion that alcoholism and drug dependency are somehow inherently literary. It's rubbish, of course.

>> No.2485742

Name the authors please (other than Shakespear and Hunter S. Thompson)

>> No.2485746

>Shakespeare
>weed

Mmmmmmmnope. Sorry stoners.
There's no question that he loved drink, however.

>> No.2485748

i miss quentin

>> No.2485749

>>2485729
I agree. Not all artists are addicts, and not all addicts are artists. But sometimes, they do find common interests.

>> No.2485760

>Bottom pic
Who the fuck is the guy on the bottom and why is he addicted to Granola?

>> No.2485764

>>2485760
I'm pretty sure that's some Ginger Cake.

>> No.2485768

>Shakespeare
>weed
Unless you can provide evidence, I'm calling bullshit.

>> No.2485771

>>2485768

uh there's like 12 lines in timon of athens about how to properly pack a bowl

>> No.2485773

>>2485768
http://theweek.com/article/index/216760/did-shakespeare-smoke-pot
Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
O know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.

>> No.2485774

>>2485768
same people who go apeshit saying Washington was a stoner but apparantly they found residue of weed in the remains of a pipe in his garden...sounds like I'm making that up now that I type it here but I swear that may be true

>> No.2485778

>>2485760
It's Charles Beaudelaire. I don't remember him smoking hash though, gonna need source on this.
He definitely was an alcoholic and a absynth drinker, that's for sure.

>> No.2485780

>>2485742

William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, HST, Aldous Huxley, Shakespeare, and dunno who the last one is but im guessing its a hashish user?

>> No.2485787

For every "genius" who used this or that substance, somebody else can also name another that either only occasionally did drugs or didn't do any drugs at all. There isn't even a correlation, much less causation. It's just confirmation bias.

Here, look:
Burroughs ----> Mann
Bukowski ---> Billy Collins
Hunter S. Thompson ---> Saul Bellow
Huxley ---> Orwell
Shakespeare ---> Milton
I don't know who the last one is by sight but I'm just going to say Dos Passos.

>> No.2485790

>>2485780
>>2485787
see
>>2485778

>> No.2485791

>>2485787
All of them did drugs.

>> No.2485796

Is that Hunter and LSD? He took about about 20 different types of drugs every day, LSD would be more aligned to psychedellic writers but then I suppose they are outside of /lit/'s allowed list of books to discuss.

In regards to literature (or any artform really) and drugs, they helped some and completely destroyed others...sometimes they did both. There are some writers who are somewhat defined by their substance, whether it is a major theme of their work or not, and I feel it should be regarded in criticism as an influence like any other if there is evidence it informed the work...sometimes it is seen as just a biographical fact about the author and can be dismissed.

I would argue that this can be wrongfully overlooked in mainstream academia, while things like modern notions of sexuality can be seen to inform whole works, there is a general awkwardness when it comes to considering our modern notion of addiction and it tends to be passed off in a similar fashion to "oh this writer liked eating lobster" - that is unless it is a major thematic part of the writer's work, as with Burroughs.

>> No.2485797

Put Pynchon next a fucking bong if you have any common sense.

Also, lol @ shakespeare and weed

>> No.2485803

>>2485774
Thomas Pynchon believes it.

> read Mason & Dixon

>> No.2485805

>>2485791
>only occasionally did drugs or didn't do any drugs at all.
They experimented but were not addicts or did not experiment.
I was basically just guessing on those based on biographies/blurbs I've read, care to cite these?

>> No.2485821

>>2485787
Though I agree with your argument --bro, I was at a UCLA reading given by Billy Collins and he read us a haiku about MJ.

Also Will's use of MJ is pretty debatable.

>> No.2485828

>>2485821
Eh, I could've researched and didn't.

>> No.2485864

>>2485805
>>2485821
Mann was into his hallucinogens with Huxley. Orwell got hooked on opium for a time, I'm pretty sure.

>> No.2485889

No Kesey?

>> No.2485909
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2485909

Seriously /lit/? So many people not recognizing Baudelaire?

>> No.2485934

>>2485909
Did this REALLY surprised you?

>> No.2486024

Whats that shit next to huxley?

>> No.2486034

anybody read any henri michaux? he was supposed to have writted drug induced surrealist stuff.

>> No.2486043

i think the key insight to take away from all of this is that drugs have a minimal effect either way--positive or negative. Great writers are great writers regardless. Most probably because they read a lot. But factors influencing intelligence. Drugs consumption is only one of a vast array.

>> No.2486047

>>2486043
great writers are not great writers because they "read a lot". it may help sometimes, but i can assure you that there is only correlation but not causation

>> No.2486050

>>2486024
Peyote. One of the most notable sources of mescaline, which he is known to have experimented with and written about in The Doors of Perception.

>> No.2486481

Cocaine ruined HST

>> No.2486575

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Shakespeare was a stoner. My prose becomes completely disjointed in the exact same vein as the arbitrary/[poetic] syntax he uses in his plays

>> No.2486588

>>2486575
was Shakespeare autistic?

>> No.2486786

>>2485796
No he didn't. Stop talking shit. Also he preferred mescaline.

People act as though Thompson was literally tripping every waking moment, as much as it ruins your fantasy this isn't true.

>> No.2486797
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2486797

>Yet another DRUGS WILL MAKE ME A RIGHTER thread

>> No.2486815
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2486815

>>2486797
>RIGHTER