Romantigoth Rant: The Veg-friendly Romantic Poets

At this point in my life, I am mostly an interior darkling. In my busy life, the idea of spending a lot of time on any type of visual aesthetic is completely foreign to me. Yet, in my heart, I will always be what may most closely be classed as a variety of Romantigoth. If only I had known that there were others like me when this tendency was at its peak (my adolescence)!

Poetry, Music, Art, Darkness, Spirituality, Beauty, Creativity…yeah. When I was in high school I went through a fervent Romantigoth period, wearing vintage Victorian clothes, bustles, hoops, authentic granny boots, and the like. I shopped at antique stores and flea markets the way my classmates did at the mall. I begged my mother to help me make vintage dresses and bustles, from patterns. I had a collection of riding hats. I repeat...riding hats. Of course, this was before the internet, so I didn’t know I was a Romantigoth. I intuitively went that direction on my own. Painfully socially awkward, I spent my time alone, likely reading a Bronte novel and ignoring the other kids. As a child of domestic violence and sexual abuse, never making the normal types of friendships, I had always been bullied. By high school, I saw most of my peers more as hostile forms of alien life, so my look was probably as much a buffer to keep them at a distance as anything. Again, probably due to my context, I longed desperately to exist in another time and place. I fervently believed that, in that “simpler time,” everything would be okay and I would fit in. I don’t mean to imply that these are the motivations of others with gothic leanings, but merely mine.

The Romantigoth part of me is now just a deeply inherent, yet not overwhelming, aspect of my identity. Once dressed to the nines in period clothes, I now but rarely even wear a skirt!  But as you can see, my love of the culture is very real.

One of the hallmarks of a Romantigoth is love of poetry. Mind you, I enjoy a deliberately “bad,” playful verse as much as I do the classics. But today I want to highlight the veg leanings of some of the old masters.

Percy Bysshe Shelley was a philosopher, a “radical,” and an environmental activist before he discovered vegetarianism in 1813. One of his most ardent biographers was Henry S Salt, who was also a prolific author on vegetarianism, animal rights, and other types of social reform. A website on Salt that references his work on Shelley is as follows: http://www.henrysalt.co.uk/critic/percy-bysshe-shelley

Salt notes in his book, “A Shelley Primer,” that Shelley loved philosophy at least as much as poetry. And he took to vegetarianism with ferocious enthusiasm. In 1813, after about eight months of eating veg, Shelley wrote “A Vindication of Natural Diet.” It was initially published as a set of notes, to help his fans understand the philosophical basis for his famous poem, Queen Mab. This short book goes over all the philosophical, religious, and moral reasons that he finds vegetarianism to be the ideal diet (and natural diet) of humans. He quotes more ancient veg writers including Hesiod, Ovid, Plato, and Plutarch in his work. “Vindication” is available online, and is a fairly easy read. One website I have found it on is:  http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/shelley01.htm  and if that website ever disappears, it can be found pretty easily with a web search. 

Percy not only moved away from meat, but apparently also eggs and dairy. The Vegan Society of England (www.vegansociety.com) says, in a section on history, "...Fast forward to 1806 CE and the earliest concepts of veganism are just starting to take shape, with Dr William Lambe and Percy Bysshe Shelley amongst the first to publicly object to eggs and dairy on ethical grounds."

Although I hate to skip to the end of Shelley's well written book, the last two sentences of "Vindication" are in all caps for emphasis, and sum his ideas up:

NEVER TAKE ANY SUBSTANCE INTO THE STOMACH THAT ONCE HAD LIFE.

DRINK NO LIQUID BUT WATER RESTORED TO ITS ORIGINAL PURITY BY DISTILLATION.

This touches on his other belief in abstinence from alcohol. He believed both substances (animal products and booze) had a negative effect on the temper and morality of humans, mostly in leading toward violence.

Another website has given an excellent summary of Shelley’s vegetarian themes in different bodies of work (http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/Animal%20Rights%20A%20History%20Percy%20Bysshe%20Shelly.htm)

which includes this clip from Queen Mab (book eight):

Immortal upon Earth: No longer now,

He slays the lamb that looks him in the face,

And horribly devours his mangled flesh,

Which, still avenging nature's broken law,

Kindled all putrid humours in his frame,

All evil passions, and all vain belief,

Hatred, despair, and loathing in his mind,

The germs of misery, death, disease, and crime. 

The above lines showcase his beliefs that killing of animals for food increases human tendencies to violence; against other humans as well as the animals. Below, he reflects ideas about a Golden Age of humans (or prior species of humans) seen in work by Hesiod and Ovid. Yet Shelley looks forward to a future age, where he hopes modern humans can reclaim paradise:

No longer now the winged habitants,

That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,

Flee from the form of man; but gather round,

And prune their sunny feathers on the hands

Which little children stretch in friendly sport

Towards these dreadless partners of their play.

All things are void of terror: man has lost

His terrible prerogative, and stands

An equal amidst equals: happiness

And science dawn though late, upon the earth;

Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;

Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,

Reason and passion cease to combat there;

Whilst each unfettered o'er the earth extends

Their all-subduing energies, and wield

The sceptre of a vast dominion there;

Whilst every shape and mode of matter lends

Its force to the omnipotence of mind,

Which from its dark mine drags the gem of truth

To decorate its paradise of peace. (59)

Pretty much everyone knows about the close friendship between Byron and Shelley. The two of them even dated sisters for a time, those being Mary Godwin (Shelley) and her step-sister, Claire Clairmont. Anyone who appreciates the horror genre and the reign of the “penny dreadful,” probably knows about the epic weekend in 1816 when the group was holed up at their Villa in Lake Geneva, Italy, due to a post-volcanic ash storm and its attendant dark, moody weather. Byron suggested they all write a ghost story. This led to the first draft of Mary’s famous “Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus.” What many do not realize is that Byron’s personal physician, John Polidori, also wrote an important work on that day. It was “Vampyre,” and is often acknowledged as the prototype to the Victorian, literary vamp. He said that his vampire in the story, Lord Ruthven, was homage to (or perhaps critique of) his boss, Lord Byron. Further, Byron is thought to have inspired Polidori with an earlier story draft about a blood-sucker that was called “The Burial: A Fragment.” In fact, authorship of “Vampyre” has sometimes erroneously been given to Byron, due to a mistake made by an early publisher. Given Byron’s health-based vegetarianism, and how everyone saw it as an extremely odd and eccentric way to eat, it is intriguing to wonder to what extent both authors saw the odd diet of the vamp as a commentary on the importance of diet, and on the nature of dietary predation.

The vegetarian ideas of this literary group have been scrubbed from the historical narrative. Yet, as we have seen, Percy Shelley was very committed to vegetarianism, and was probably the “ring-leader” with his friends on the vegetarian front. Percy seems to have been an excellent example of an “ethics vegetarian,” who abstains from animal foods due to his beliefs. Letters document that the group of friends would sit around discussing philosophy, politics, science, and literature for a good portion of any day. It is absolutely inevitable that vegetarianism would have been well represented. Both Byron and Shelley were vegetarian, though seemingly in different ways and for different reasons. We cannot know to what extent the other members of the circle were vegetarian, but they clearly understood and seemed to agree with the underlying ideas. We know from the appendix of “Vindication” that Shelley’s first wife went veg with him for at least eight months. Whether Mary was veg seems to be lost to the ages. Yet while she was with him, I’m betting she was.

For instance, the major ideas found in Shelley’s “Vindication of a Natural Diet” can also be found in Mary’s “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus.” Her work is absolutely a vegetarian horror story. This may be a surprise to you, since the vegetarianism has been completely cut out of modern renditions. Yet the philosophy from Percy’s “Vindication” underlies the whole original story.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley

The “creature” that Dr. Frankenstein makes from both human and non-human animal parts is the “new Adam” of a different species. Dr. Frankenstein is called the modern Prometheus because of Percy’s argument that the mythological Prometheus bringing fire to humankind was meddling with the natural order, and led humans to a meat diet. He asserts this because humans have always sought to cook meat before eating it, since it is not our natural food and is not palatable, or sometimes even digestible, in its natural state. He got this idea from earlier writers, like Plutarch in his treatise, “On the Eating of Flesh.” So the term "Prometheus" is used to suggest someone who meddles with nature, and challenges the gods, which inevitably leads to unintended consequences. And these folks who are sometimes called "the Romantic (era) Vegetarians" asserted that introducing livestock agriculture and meat-eating to humanity was a similar act.



Shelley's Vegetarian Treatise

Mary’s creature is a vegetarian, and does not even eat meat when he finds it lying around by an old campfire. The speciesism that Frankenstein’s creature experiences at the hands of humans both begins and escalates the violence and tragedy in the tale. By speciesism, I mean that the creature is reviled and treated unkindly because it is different. Speciesism is the term for an assumption that humans are better than other animals. If you are interested in this concept, there is a fairly recent documentary on it called simply, “Speciesism.” This can be found here: http://speciesismthemovie.com/ 

When the creature demands a bride, he is asking for his “Eve” so they can go to a remote location and start a new race, living the way that the Shelleys suggest is best—upon plants. This all reflects the “back to the garden” ideal that Percy writes about in Queen Mab. When the creature teaches himself to read, one of the prominent books he uses is "Paradise Lost," by Milton. Milton also romanticizes the Golden Age vegetarian diet, and self-identifies as a Pythagorean (what they called Vegetarians before the eighteen fifties).

Carol J Adams wrote a whole chapter on Frankenstein in her foundational work about vegan feminism entitled, “The Sexual Politics of Meat.” That chapter and, in fact, the whole book, are well-worth the read if you are interested.

Now for Lord Byron. From what remain of his own letters about his life, he seems to have been a vegetarian mostly for the health benefits. Like many who view vegetarianism as a diet, he was more likely to “cheat” by having animal products on a holiday, while traveling, or at a family dinner. This doesn’t mean that vegetarianism was not also informed by his ethics (or the ethics of his close friend), but ultimately he obviously was more prone to lapses when it came to both animal products and alcohol.

For instance, here is a segment from his letters, which is online at http://www.ivu.org/history/williams/byron.html. This segment is from Life of Lord Byron : with his letters and journals (Vol.3 1814-17) (link to archive.org) pub. London, 1839, this edition 1854. Where it says he has “kept to Pythagoras,” this means he has been vegetarian. 

p.337 - 1817: Venice, January 28. 1817."The remedy for your plethora is simple — abstinence. I was obliged to have recourse to the like some years ago, I mean in point of diet, and, with the exception of some convivial weeks and days, (it might be months, now and then,) have kept to Pythagoras ever since. For all this, let me hear that you are better. You must not indulge in ' filthy beer,' nor in porter, nor eat suppers — the last are the devil to those who swallow dinner."

One of his friends loved to circulate the funny story that Byron would buy a goose to fatten up for a holiday, then get attached to the goose and keep it as a pet. His struggles to be vegetarian are still understandable, today.

Extract from Shelley by Edward Blunden 1946:

[in Ravenna, Italy 1818] One of Byron's characteristics could not have been missed by any visitor. Madame Guiccioli found it very comical, and would tell a good story about it. For Michaelmas Day Byron regularly resolved to have a roast goose, and bought one; but by the time he had fattened it for a month the goose and he were such friends that the bird did not come to the table, and another was bought. At last he possessed four pet geese which traveled in cages under his carriage. Shelley's catalogue of Byron's zoo ("besides servants"), omitting geese, includes "ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow and a falcon; and all these except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were masters of it." Shelley supposed that this list was complete, but as he departed "met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were before they were changed into these shapes."



Percy Shelley

So, between the Shelleys, Byron, and Polidori it could be argued that both Frankenstein and Dracula have vegetarian roots! Certainly we can easily see that the horror genre is almost always a way for humans to work out our fears and fantasies about violence and predation—most typically as they apply to sex and to eating (or being eaten). The base line is to ask, who is the consumer, and who is consumed? This plays out across layers of context that include species, race, class, gender, sexual identity, and more.

John Polidori





                Anyhow, that’s my Romantigoth rant of the day. Faretheewell, fellow darklings. We’ll always have Lake Geneva.