Visions and Revisions: Addiction and Additions in Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Carceri d’Invenzione, Alessia Pannese

Thomas De Quincey’s autobiographical account Confessions of an English Opium-Eater compares opium-induced states of mind with the imaginary architecture of Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s etching series Carceri d‘Invenzione. Here I examine how this inner-to-outer transposition acts as a locus of convergence of Piranesi’s and De Quincey’s works at a metaphorical level, as well in more subtle and direct ways. Bringing together textual and visual evidence from the original and revised editions of the Confessions and the Carceri, I discuss ways in which both De Quincey and Piranesi negotiate the themes of freedom and restraint, and suggest parallels with the reality of opium addiction.