I know, the name’s a little cheesy and tongue-in-cheek, but throughout literary history, alcohol has served as a muse and maiden to our greatest authors and poets. Since my freshman year of college, I have been fascinated by the ways in which writers employ alcohol both in their art and as a means to that art. The line between genius and insanity is usually blurred, and generally more so when an outside substance is involved. With this blog, I hope to share my own scholarly findings, as well as my general amateur opinions, about the use and abuse of alcohol in literature.

The first recorded alcoholic drink was an ancient version of what we now call wine. Many scholars claim that wine has existed since 4000 B.C., and so it is at the heart of human history to partake in this fermented juice. The first written reference to wine was in 2500 B.C., in ancient Egypt, where it was frequently used in postmortem preparation for the afterlife. However, the first written account of viniculture (or the art of wine cultivation) was in the Old Testament’s Book of Genesis, in Noah’s story. Since then, wine has not only become an integral part of Jewish and Christian religious ritual, but of literary ritual as well.

Whether it warns us of excess or encourages our creative impulse, alcohol is a nearly unavoidable part of literature. It is used to bring to light man’s greatest evils, as well as mask his most sociopathic desires. Intoxication has brought about the demise of some of our greatest writers (Charles Bukowski, Edgar Allan Poe), but it has also created some of the greatest works of fiction (“Kubla Khan,” Naked Lunch). (I should note here, in lieu of the fact that “Kubla Khan” was technically produced by an opium dream, that while when I reference “intoxication” I am usually referring to alcohol, it also serves as an umbrella term for any sort of chemical influence .)