Mystique & Misery of the Green Muse
Privat-Livemont’s 1896 poster advertising absinthe.
Oscar Wilde’s withering hauteur; should it have a touch of madness or perversity, combining, say, the tastes of Toulouse-Lautrec with the passions of van Gogh; should it simply sound direct and forceful and knowing like one of Ernest Hemingway’s characters; should it do any or all of that, let me credit something that each of these figures fervently paid tribute to: the green fairy, the green goddess, the green muse, the glaucous witch, the queen of poisons.
Absinthe.
In a captivating read, Edward Rothstein of the NY Times looks at the perilous and prosperous renown of Absinthe or what one 19th-century poet called “the Devil, made liquid.” Absinthe Returns in a Glass Half Full of Mystique and Misery. The EA would like to point out that in our customary manner of being just a bit head of the curve when it comes to spirits — real and imagined — we covered the news of Absinthe’s revival here EA 10/16/07.
Albert Maignan’s “Green Muse” (1895)
shows a poet succumbing to the green fairy
