Vegetarianism and Romanticism
Encyclopedia
Vegetarianism and Romanticism refers to the rise of vegetarianism
during the Romanticism
movement in Western Europe from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. England, Germany, and France were most affected by the turn to a predominantly meatless diet during this time. Vegetarianism during the Romantic Period was ubiquitous and widespread, stemming primarily from literary influence as well as from new ideas about anthropology, consumerism, and evolution. Vegetarianism in the Romantic Period may also have been impacted by views on humanism as well as by the Age of Enlightenment
during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The shift to vegetarianism was led by a number of literary contemporaries, most notably Percy Shelley (4 August 1792-8 July 1822), who wrote a number of essays supporting such a lifestyle. Other vegetarian promoters included Alexander Pope
(21 May 1688-30 May 1744), Thomas Tryon
(6 September 1634-21 August 1703), and Joseph Ritson
(2 October 1752-23 September 1803).
, in 1847, vegetarianism dates back long before the formation of this organization. The confusion here may lie in the fact that until the creation of the Vegetarian Society, vegetarians were referred to as “Pythagoreans.” It was not until the nineteenth century that anyone coined the term “vegetarian”. It is important to look back to Romantic writers like Shelley, Ritson, and Tryon as early promoters of vegetarianism. Essays and other works penned by these influential Romantics had long supported a meatless diet. With ideologies rooted in Romantic aesthetics of compassion and communion with nature, these writers found the consumption of meat as sacrilegious and inhumane. With these ideals came the rebellion against the industrialized, economically centered, consumerist market that flourished during this period. Romantics rejected consumerism in favor of a more primal communion with nature that had nothing to do with currency or economics. With the industrial age came increased prices on meat products, a result of profit-driven markets. Between higher prices for consumption and the growth of humanitarian feelings towards animal rights, vegetarianism became the practical choice in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. In conjunction with these changes in values and Romantic aesthetics came an agricultural revolution of sorts. During the eighteenth century, with more varieties of vegetables available, practicing a meatless diet became much easier to maintain. Nearly every large town in Western Europe now had numerous gardens fully supplied with fruits and vegetables. Between the new accessibility of meat alternatives, Romantic ideals of nature and humanism, and the desire to rebel against consumerism and class distinctions, the vegetarian movement had begun.
, direct observation of animals during this period allowed for humans to realize that animals too could communicate, feel pain, and perhaps even feel emotion. With this newfound realization, rooted in Enlightenment values of humanitarianism, mankind began to see fewer differences separating them and the beasts. Humans, led by Locke, started to believe that animals and humans were interconnected in some way, and therefore, if man was unkind toward animals he would also be unkind towards his fellow man With such principles in mind, vegetarianism became the proper response, one fueled by both humanitarianism and compassion.
, who claimed that all species were descended of common ancestors, also became prevalent in the early and mid-nineteenth century. These new scientific ideas stirred a great response from Romantic writers and members of European society who now began to see animals and man as interconnected.
and how such a diet of blood will engender ferocity in those who consume it". He, among other Romantics saw the eating of animals as a violation of nature. Such views on anthropology
and physiognomy contributed to the vegetarian movement in Western Europe because of societal desires to both connect with nature, as well as to remain somewhat connected to the past. Much of Romantic literature displayed themes centered on the evocation of the past. Early Romantics, facing a new, modern, shiny, machine-driven world hoped to maintain older values of religion, nature, and imagination by establishing and maintaining attachments to earlier history. A way to maintain this connection with earlier, less mechanic human beings was to revert to previous diet practices, and it was thought that the more primitive humans had sustained themselves on a diet closer to a vegetarian lifestyle . Romantic writers including Ritson, Shelley, and Pope perceived the movement to vegetarianism as a way of returning to nature, reclaiming history, and turning away from animal or carnal savagery. Shelley promoted this idealist principle in A Vindication of Natural Diet, writing, "It is a man of violent passions, blood-shot eyes, and swollen veins, that alone can grasp the knife of murder...In no cases has a return to vegetable diet produced the slightest injury: in most it has been attended with changes undeniably beneficial". Fueled by literary Romantics like Ritson and Shelley, vegetarianism became a substitute for what had been deemed to be a savage, physiologically-conflicted practice of blood consumption.
vegetarian. Besides his arguments on physiognomy and anthropology in relation to a pro-vegetarian lifestyle, he also saw vegetarianism as a means of preventing medical ailments, advocating vegetarianism as a means of living to a “green old age”. In his “Essay on abstinence from animal food, as a moral duty,” he argued that the a complete abstinence from meat consumption would cure any human disease or medical ailment. He also argued that the practice of consuming your “fellow creatures” was cruel and unnecessary. He emphasized the unfeeling emotions associated with animal slaughter and the resulting disconnect from nature that it caused. A pursuer of Romantic ideals and aesthetics of nature, Ritson classified the hunting and killing of animals as pure “blood sport,” an act that demoted humans to a savage and diabolical existence. He argued that the pursuance of this “sport” only further corrupted humans’ natural temper and turned one away from the appreciation of the sublimity of nature.
(1792–1822) aligned most of his views on vegetarianism with those of Ritson. Like Ritson, Shelley believed that a meatless diet was the best mode of consumption for a healthy, disease-free life. He believed that human disease could be alleviated by a simple reversion back to a plant-based diet. The eating of meat, to Shelley, was a practice that polluted the body with syphilis, among other unpleasant ailments. In A Vindication of Natural Diet he wrote, "Should ever a physician be born with the genius of Locke, I am persuaded that he might trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural habits," these unnatural habits being the consumption of meat. He compared the negative effects of a meat-based diet to alcoholism, asking, "How many thousands have become murderers and robbers, bigots and domestic tyrants, dissolute and abandoned adventurers, from the use of fermented liquors?". He goes on to suggest that, a human of gentle disposition towards animals, "rising from a meal of roots," will be a healthy man whose only threat of death will be that of his own natural, old age.
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
during the Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
movement in Western Europe from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. England, Germany, and France were most affected by the turn to a predominantly meatless diet during this time. Vegetarianism during the Romantic Period was ubiquitous and widespread, stemming primarily from literary influence as well as from new ideas about anthropology, consumerism, and evolution. Vegetarianism in the Romantic Period may also have been impacted by views on humanism as well as by the Age of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The shift to vegetarianism was led by a number of literary contemporaries, most notably Percy Shelley (4 August 1792-8 July 1822), who wrote a number of essays supporting such a lifestyle. Other vegetarian promoters included Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
(21 May 1688-30 May 1744), Thomas Tryon
Thomas Tryon
Thomas Tryon was an English merchant, author of popular self-help books, and early advocate of vegetarianism.-Life:...
(6 September 1634-21 August 1703), and Joseph Ritson
Joseph Ritson
Joseph Ritson was an English antiquary.He was born at Stockton-on-Tees, of a Westmorland yeoman family. He was educated for the law, and settled in London as a conveyancer at the age of twenty-two. He devoted his spare time to literature, and in 1782 published an attack on Thomas Warton's History...
(2 October 1752-23 September 1803).
History
Though many scholars identify the origin of the vegetarian movement with the establishment of the Vegetarian SocietyVegetarian Society
The Vegetarian Society is a British registered charity established on 30 September 1847 to "support, represent and increase the number of vegetarians in the UK."-History:...
, in 1847, vegetarianism dates back long before the formation of this organization. The confusion here may lie in the fact that until the creation of the Vegetarian Society, vegetarians were referred to as “Pythagoreans.” It was not until the nineteenth century that anyone coined the term “vegetarian”. It is important to look back to Romantic writers like Shelley, Ritson, and Tryon as early promoters of vegetarianism. Essays and other works penned by these influential Romantics had long supported a meatless diet. With ideologies rooted in Romantic aesthetics of compassion and communion with nature, these writers found the consumption of meat as sacrilegious and inhumane. With these ideals came the rebellion against the industrialized, economically centered, consumerist market that flourished during this period. Romantics rejected consumerism in favor of a more primal communion with nature that had nothing to do with currency or economics. With the industrial age came increased prices on meat products, a result of profit-driven markets. Between higher prices for consumption and the growth of humanitarian feelings towards animal rights, vegetarianism became the practical choice in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. In conjunction with these changes in values and Romantic aesthetics came an agricultural revolution of sorts. During the eighteenth century, with more varieties of vegetables available, practicing a meatless diet became much easier to maintain. Nearly every large town in Western Europe now had numerous gardens fully supplied with fruits and vegetables. Between the new accessibility of meat alternatives, Romantic ideals of nature and humanism, and the desire to rebel against consumerism and class distinctions, the vegetarian movement had begun.
Enlightenment and Humanism
The move to a vegetarian culture during the eighteenth and nineteenth century has been suggested to be a result of the coming Age of Enlightenment. This movement represented a shift to beliefs in justice, freedom, and brotherhood among humans. The ideas foregrounding the Age of Enlightenment were largely accepted across Western Europe. With this new "enlightenment" came new reflections on how members of the human race were to treat each other and also their animal brethren. According to John LockeJohn Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, direct observation of animals during this period allowed for humans to realize that animals too could communicate, feel pain, and perhaps even feel emotion. With this newfound realization, rooted in Enlightenment values of humanitarianism, mankind began to see fewer differences separating them and the beasts. Humans, led by Locke, started to believe that animals and humans were interconnected in some way, and therefore, if man was unkind toward animals he would also be unkind towards his fellow man With such principles in mind, vegetarianism became the proper response, one fueled by both humanitarianism and compassion.
Economics and Consumerism
Timothy Morton noted that, "by the Romantic period 'the consumer' had been born as an economic subject," classifying humans as commodifiable entities for market and economic profit. The shift to a meatless diet was seen by many as a way to distinguish oneself from an increasingly consumerist society fueled by industrialized living and profit-driven market conglomerates. An all-plant diet regime allowed those opposed to the present economic practices to exercise protest against consumerism by refusing the purchase of meat products. Romantic vegetarianism was a product of resistance to the "culture of luxury" which wove its way into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With literary reformists like Shelley carrying the flag, the public turned to vegetarianism. Meat had become a symbol of consumerism, so the Romantics, in an attempt to alleviate the oppressive nature of man and politics, boycotted such consumption. Meat had also become a symbol of class separation, with wealthy class consumers demanding red meat, and lower class families eating potatoes and vegetables. In order to oppose such social separations, a number of individuals from various classes sought to remove meat consumption, therefore removing such class distinctions in the process. Essentially, vegetarianism became a radical response to a consumer-based pseudo-culture driven primarily by commercialization and market profit. The vegetarian movement established a Romantic form of consumerism that rejected raising meat prices in a newly market-driven mass society.Evolution and Nature
The eighteenth century brought with it new ideas of evolution and nature. Society now saw the environment and the organisms within it as more physically, biologically, and even emotionally complex. Biologists began to study the embryonic development and differences in individual organisms. With these new studies came new insight on the relationship between human and animal. French naturalist, Georges-Louis Leclerc Comte de Buffon addressed ideas of common ancestry in his Histoire naturelle stating that many scientists believed “that man and ape have a common origin; that, in fact, all the families among plants as well as animals, have come from common stock”. Theories of Charles DarwinCharles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, who claimed that all species were descended of common ancestors, also became prevalent in the early and mid-nineteenth century. These new scientific ideas stirred a great response from Romantic writers and members of European society who now began to see animals and man as interconnected.
Anthropology and Physiognomy
In his Moral Essay upon Abstinence(1802), Joseph Ritson claimed "how unnatural flesh-eating is to human physiognomyPhysiognomy
Physiognomy is the assessment of a person's character or personality from their outer appearance, especially the face...
and how such a diet of blood will engender ferocity in those who consume it". He, among other Romantics saw the eating of animals as a violation of nature. Such views on anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and physiognomy contributed to the vegetarian movement in Western Europe because of societal desires to both connect with nature, as well as to remain somewhat connected to the past. Much of Romantic literature displayed themes centered on the evocation of the past. Early Romantics, facing a new, modern, shiny, machine-driven world hoped to maintain older values of religion, nature, and imagination by establishing and maintaining attachments to earlier history. A way to maintain this connection with earlier, less mechanic human beings was to revert to previous diet practices, and it was thought that the more primitive humans had sustained themselves on a diet closer to a vegetarian lifestyle . Romantic writers including Ritson, Shelley, and Pope perceived the movement to vegetarianism as a way of returning to nature, reclaiming history, and turning away from animal or carnal savagery. Shelley promoted this idealist principle in A Vindication of Natural Diet, writing, "It is a man of violent passions, blood-shot eyes, and swollen veins, that alone can grasp the knife of murder...In no cases has a return to vegetable diet produced the slightest injury: in most it has been attended with changes undeniably beneficial". Fueled by literary Romantics like Ritson and Shelley, vegetarianism became a substitute for what had been deemed to be a savage, physiologically-conflicted practice of blood consumption.
Thomas Tryon
Thomas Tryon (1634–1703), an English merchant and author, was one of the earliest supporters of vegetarianism. He established a connection between carnivorous eating habits and slavery, claiming both were immoral and inhumane. He argued that the eating of flesh was never for necessity, but rather a means for man to satisfy his hunger for dominance. According to Tryon, the killing and consumption of animals is nothing but an assertion of power over innocent, defenseless animals.Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) was another literary influence on the practice of vegetarianism. In The Guardian, Pope’s essay, “Against Barbarity to Animals,” paints a gruesome picture of animal slaughter. He writes, “I know nothing more shocking or horrid than the prospect of one of their [the humans’] kitchens covered with blood, and filled with the cries of creatures expiring in tortures”. Pope viewed the slaughter of animals as an exercise of tyranny. Like Tryon, Pope believed animal consumption was the product of man’s desire for dominion over all those inferior. He too put considerable blame on Enlightenment influences of politics, profit, and industrialization and he advocated in favor of vegetarianism as a means of rebelling against such tyrannical urges.Joseph Ritson
Joseph Ritson (1752–1803), an English antiquary, was a radicalRadicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
vegetarian. Besides his arguments on physiognomy and anthropology in relation to a pro-vegetarian lifestyle, he also saw vegetarianism as a means of preventing medical ailments, advocating vegetarianism as a means of living to a “green old age”. In his “Essay on abstinence from animal food, as a moral duty,” he argued that the a complete abstinence from meat consumption would cure any human disease or medical ailment. He also argued that the practice of consuming your “fellow creatures” was cruel and unnecessary. He emphasized the unfeeling emotions associated with animal slaughter and the resulting disconnect from nature that it caused. A pursuer of Romantic ideals and aesthetics of nature, Ritson classified the hunting and killing of animals as pure “blood sport,” an act that demoted humans to a savage and diabolical existence. He argued that the pursuance of this “sport” only further corrupted humans’ natural temper and turned one away from the appreciation of the sublimity of nature.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
(1792–1822) aligned most of his views on vegetarianism with those of Ritson. Like Ritson, Shelley believed that a meatless diet was the best mode of consumption for a healthy, disease-free life. He believed that human disease could be alleviated by a simple reversion back to a plant-based diet. The eating of meat, to Shelley, was a practice that polluted the body with syphilis, among other unpleasant ailments. In A Vindication of Natural Diet he wrote, "Should ever a physician be born with the genius of Locke, I am persuaded that he might trace all bodily and mental derangements to our unnatural habits," these unnatural habits being the consumption of meat. He compared the negative effects of a meat-based diet to alcoholism, asking, "How many thousands have become murderers and robbers, bigots and domestic tyrants, dissolute and abandoned adventurers, from the use of fermented liquors?". He goes on to suggest that, a human of gentle disposition towards animals, "rising from a meal of roots," will be a healthy man whose only threat of death will be that of his own natural, old age.