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Thomas De Quincey and the Language of Literature: Or, on the Necessity of Ignorance

While critics have often commented on the distinction between knowledge and power that emerges in Thomas De Quincey’s definition of literature, such comment has tended to read the definition in isolation from its context in “Letters to a Young Man Whose Education Has Been Neglected” (1823). De Quincey does not merely celebrate literature for the heightened emotional state that it supplies but also offers literature in response to the sheer number of books that wait to be read, which causes a form of madness. Literature’s function in “Letters” is to counter the madness for more knowledge that reading always possibly inspires.