"""Addicted to Pleasures"": Representing Commodities of Empire and Consumerism in Eighteenth -Century English Culture"
This dissertation examines how the introduction of the soft drugs caffeine and nicotine into eighteenth-century English culture deeply impacted not just British society but, in addition, the content and style of writing in the period---fiction, poetry and drama---as filtered through literary representations. It provides meaningful knowledge towards a richer and significant understanding of the concept of addiction in general, and of the addictive products introduced through eighteenth-century maritime commerce, in particular. Although only recently introduced into Britain, these exotic products spread with lightning speed through all levels of society and acutely reverberated throughout the greater part of the British population. Thus, by literally devouring the habit-forming commodities of Empire---coffee, tea and tobacco---both genders and all classes in every sphere of social and private life remain implicated in British imperialism. The means in this effort are close readings of both major and minor literary works of the period. In this era, the increase of psychoactive stimulants and depressants set in motion cycles of dependence. Entwined with a growing rational, enlightened Europe is an emerging drug culture dependent on colonial commodities imported for physical pleasure. The major works include Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa and Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe..
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign