What is intoxicating about bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of offensiveness. - Charles Baudelaire

"It's time, Old Captain, lift anchor, sink!

The land rots; we shall sail into the night;

if now the sky and sea are black as ink

our hearts, as you must know, are filled with light.

Only when we drink poison are we well — we want, this fire so burns our brain tissue,

to drown in the abyss — heaven or hell,

who cares? Through the unknown, we'll find the new. ("Le Voyage")"

Poe’s drunkenness was a mnemonic device, a deliberate method of work, drastic and fatal, no doubt, but suited to his passionate nature. Poe taught himself to drink, just as a careful man of letters makes a deliberate practice of filling his notebooks with notes.

Bientôt nous plongerons dans les froides ténèbres;
Adieu, vive clarté de nos étés trop courts!