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In "A Vindication of Natural Diet," Percy Bysshe Shelley presents a compelling argument for vegetarianism, drawing on moral, ethical, and philosophical considerations. Through eloquent prose and persuasive rhetoric, Shelley critiques the societal norms surrounding meat consumption, linking it to broader themes of human rights and compassion for living beings. The book reflects the Romantic era's reverence for nature and the interconnectedness of life, echoing the ideas of contemporaries like Wordsworth and Coleridge while employing a bold, pre-modern ecological sensibility that underscores the spiritual and physical benefits of a natural diet. Percy Bysshe Shelley, a leading figure of the Romantic movement, was deeply influenced by his philosophical beliefs, transcending traditional norms and advocating for social reform. His aversion to cruelty, driven by profound empathy and a keen awareness of injustice, informed his push for dietary choices that align with a more compassionate existence. Shelley's life experiences, including his own struggles with societal expectations and personal loss, further colored his advocacy for a lifestyle that fosters harmony between humanity and the natural world. This thought-provoking work is essential reading for those interested in the intersections of ethics, environmentalism, and literature. Shelley's articulate defense of vegetarianism challenges readers to reconsider their relationship with food, urging a shift toward greater compassion and sustainability. "A Vindication of Natural Diet" serves as both a manifesto for conscientious living and a testament to the enduring relevance of Shelley's ideas.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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A Vindication of Natural Diet
Table of Contents
PREFATORY NOTICE.
Shelley's "Vindication of Natural Diet" was first written as part of the notes to "Queen Mab," which was privately issued in 1813. Later in the same year the "Vindication" was separately published as a pamphlet, and it is from this later publication that the present reprint is made. The original pamphlet is now exceedingly scarce, but it is said to have been reprinted in 1835, as an appendix to an American medical work, the "Manual on Health," by Dr. Turnbull, of New York. Two copies only are known to have been preserved of this excessively rare pamphlet, though possibly others may be hidden in unfrequented libraries and out of the way country houses. One copy is in the British Museum, and the other is in the possession of Mr. H. Buxton Forman, who has reprinted it in his great edition of Shelley, where it forms the opening part of the second volume of the "Prose Works."
The main object of Shelley's pamphlet was to show that a vegetable diet is the most natural, and therefore the best for mankind. It is not an appeal to humanitarian sentiment, but an argument based on individual experience, concerning the intimate connection of health and morality with food. It has no claim to originality in the arguments adduced; its materials being avowedly drawn from the works of Dr. Lambe and Mr. Newton, of whom an account may be read in Mr. Howard Williams' "Catena," but the style is Shelley's own, and the pamphlet is in many ways one of the most interesting and characteristic of his prose works. Perhaps its most remarkable feature is to be found in the very pertinent remarks as to the bearing of Vegetarianism on those questions of economy and social reform, which are now forcing themselves more and more on the attention of the English people.[1]
At the time of writing his "Vindication of Natural Diet," Shelley had himself, for some months past, adopted a Vegetarian diet, chiefly, no doubt, through his intimacy with the Newton family. There seems no reason to doubt that he continued to practise Vegetarianism during the rest of his stay in England, that is from 1813 to the spring of 1818. Leigh Hunt's account of his life at Marlow, in 1817, is as follows:—"This was the round of his daily life. He was up early, breakfasted sparingly, wrote this 'Revolt of Islam' all the morning; went out in his boat, or in the woods, with some Greek author or the Bible in his hands; came home to a dinner of vegetables (for he took neither meat nor wine); visited, if necessary, the sick and fatherless, whom others gave Bibles to and no help; wrote or studied again, or read to his wife and friends the whole evening; took a crust of bread or a glass of whey for his supper, and went early to bed."
In 1818, he left England for Italy, and during his last four years, the most dreamy and speculative period of his life, he seems to have been less strict in his observance of Vegetarian practice. It is not true however, as has sometimes been asserted, that Shelley lost faith in the principles of Vegetarianism; for his change in diet was owing partly to his well-known carelessness about his food, which became more marked at this time, and partly to a desire to avoid giving trouble to the other members of his household, which, as we see from a line in his letter to Maria Gisborne, written in 1820, "Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine" was not entirely a Vegetarian one. Yet, even at this period of his life, he himself was practically, if not systematically, a Vegetarian, for all his biographers agree in informing us that bread was literally his "staff of life." We cannot doubt that if he had lived in the present time he would have taken a leading part in the movement towards Food Reform. As it is, he has left us an invaluable legacy in his "Vindication of Natural Diet," perhaps the most powerful and eloquent plea ever put forward in favour of the Vegetarian cause.
He found in this the presage of his ideal future. To his enthusiastic faith in the transforming effect of the Vegetarian principle, we owe some of the finest passages in his poetry. In the close of the eighth canto of "Queen Mab," we have a picture of a time when man no more
It is the same ideal of bloodless innocence as that of Israel's prophet-poet, who declares that in the Holy Mountain they shall not hurt nor destroy. Never did sage or singer, prophet or priest, or poet, see a brighter vision of the future than that which is imaged in the description of a glorified earth, from which cruelty, bloodshed, and tyranny, have been banished.
