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Vegetarianism in the Romantic Era

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Vegetarianism as an ideal and a movement flourished during the Romantic Era. Many of the late Romantics argued in favor of a more natural diet which excluded animal flesh for a plethora of reasons including the state of human and animal health, religious beliefs, economy and class division, and animal rights. The modern vegetarian and vegan movements borrow some of the same principles from the late Romantics to promote the adoption of diets free from animal products.

Contents

Health

In 1699 Edward Tyson documented the overwhelming similarities between humans and animals, particularly apes and monkeys, but it was during the Romantic Era that advances in anthropology and physiognomy began to shape societal views on where humans fit into the world. Knowledge about the similarities between human and animal anatomy gave rise to the belief that because non-human animal bodies are alike human bodies in regards to physical senses and emotional responses, consuming animals was morally wrong. Furthermore, it was believed to be beneficial for humans to return to a diet based on plant matter. As Joseph Ritson reasoned, "the teeth and intestines of man being like those of frugivorous animals, he should, naturally, be range'd in this class".

Other noted reasons for a vegetarian diet included reduced canine teeth and the lack of claws or talons in the human body which made it almost impossible to hunt and kill another animal without the aid of manufactured tools, as well as the length of the human intestines which made it more difficult to digest meat. George Cheyne, a physician who followed a vegetarian diet, concluded that diseases had increased and longevity had decreased largely due to the incorporation of meat into the diet. A vegetarian diet was promoted as the pure and natural diet, uncorrupted by the flesh of other living beings. As stated by Timothy Morton, "vegetarian food was thought to be closer in form to the diet of early humans...it was a symptom of the relatively developed but not yet decadent phase of agricultural society," decadence being the consumption of meat.

Humans were not the only ones thought to suffer physically under a diet rich in meat; animals themselves were suffering of infections and disease. Confinement of farm animals provided a conduit for disease and illness to spread among mistreated animals, according to Morris, and the food fed to farm animals was also brought into question as a factor contributing to widespread illness.

The notion "you are what you eat" traces its origins to the Romantic Era, which was intended to have physical and moral implications. Not only was meat thought to desecrate the human body, but it was also accredited with encouraging the consumption of alcohol and "other destructive habits of life". The Romantics secured the link between the physical and moral natures of man, as Percy Shelley states in Natural Diet, "I hold that the depravity of the physical and moral nature of man originated in his unnatural habits of life". As man was assumed to be naturally healthy, it was society that polluted his body; a case of diseased health erupting out of a diseased society.

Politico-economy

The ills of society according to the Romantics had much to do with defining people according to class, both by terms of race and gender as well as economic status. The Romantics were largely concerned with hierarchical oppression within economic classes and on a greater scale were concerned with how humankind fit into the natural world. Eating meat was considered a vice of the wealthy as they were the only class in society at the time who could afford it regularly. Poor society lived on more simple diet consisting of "bread, milk, porridge, potatoes and vegetables". The inability to buy the newest luxury, meat, led to many grievances between the classes. Often constrained by their finances, "vegetarians were to be found almost exclusively among the middle class intellectuals". Consuming meat became a symbol of wasteful decadence and greed, and a means to "gratify a guilty sensuality" as Thomas Day states in the History of Sanford and Merton. As the vegetarian Thomas Tryon espouses, "The eating of flesh and killing of creatures for that purpose, was never begun, nor is now continue'd for want of necessity, or for the maintenance of health, but chiefly because the high, lofty, spirit of wrath and sensuality had gotten the dominion of man, over the meek love, and innocent harmless nature, and being so rampant, could not be satisfy'd except it had a proportionable food".

Consuming meat was a symbol of booming consumerism in the 18th century. The idea emerged that by adopting a simple vegetarian diet that was accessible to all would increase food supply, decrease the demand for land and inevitably, class conflict would decrease. According to Morton, "food is the material embodiment of all kinds of social practices" and as such, the vegetarians of the Romantic Period took to another form of consumerism: the boycott of meat. It was thought therefore that the link between the oppressive nature of man and an "unkind and brutal" diet would diminish and man would take to his natural state of being within nature.

Environment

Those committed to vegetarianism were also concerned with the health of the environment. Raising animals for food was very taxing on the environment, and highly inefficient as far as yielding the most food. As Shelley noted, "the quantity of nutritious vegetable matter, consumed in fattening the carcase of an ox, would afford ten times the sustenance if gathered immediately from the bosom of the earth". Animal husbandry was regarded as economically wasteful and an assault upon the relationship between nature's ability to provide food and man's harvesting of that food.

Religion

Prior to the Romantic Era, "vegetarianism had been primarily the reserve of religious mystics, ascetics and the odd quack physician". Yet with the rise of Romanticism, religion came under scrutiny and new meaning was found within old doctrine. Considering Christianity, vegetarians noted that only after the Flood was permission given to eat flesh and not beforehand, further promoting the belief that the true natural diet of man did not include meat. Thoughts of reincarnation gave rise to the consideration that animals had souls and as such demanded recognition as sentient beings. This line of thought is represented in A Mouse's Petition: "Beware, lest in the worm you crush/A brother's soul you find (lines 33–34).

Discourse on rights

Until the Romantic Era, the chain of being that placed man above animal was widely accepted without challenge and was reflected in the understanding of man. Man was the link between nature and God, what was good about man reflected his connection to God, what was bad reflected man's primitive connection to nature and animals. The Romantic Era rebuked this belief. Robert Morris, an eighteenth-century architectural innovator, went as far as to say that "to usurp an Authority over any other part of the Chain is indeed Pride, rank Pride, and Haughtiness of Soul". The hierarchical chain of being began to narrow and a more inclusive empathy for all creatures dominated the vegetarian discourse of the period. Allowing for animals to have souls necessitated the reevaluation of man's place in the world, for man was no longer the sole inheritor of moral consideration.

Perhaps the most lasting effects of the vegetarian movement during the Romantic Period have to do with the rise of the animal rights movement, as well as the women's rights and civil rights movements that would gain momentum throughout the nineteenth century. Shelley declared that the European diet which included meat "was responsible for the worst elements of his society, citing cruelty, tyranny and slavery as direct results. As noted by Ruston, "The evidence used in the debates surrounding vegetarianism and vitality in the Romantic Period offered a means to argue for the equal rights of all men whether white or black, for women to be regarded as deserving equal rights to men, for dissenters to ask for toleration and enfranchisement and for the rights of animals.

The change in how people viewed their relationships between other humans and animals went through a dramatic change. Taking a lead from Pythagoras's Golden Rule of doing to others as would be done to oneself, a shift was made away from asserting human dominance over nature and in turn led to the notion that humans have no rights to nature as it is common to all creatures. This notion had a profound effect on the vegetarian movement, as Morris stated, "If we could claim no right to the bodies of animals, we had no power to destroy. The sparrow and the fish of the sea are in common to all, no man claims a particular right to them, therefore has no power by nature over them to kill". As Percy Shelley remarked, "Of all rapacious animals, man is the most universal destroyer". Vegetarianism was a way for people to return to nature with a more respectful and inclusive approach to the natural world. In Animal Food, Joseph Ritson concludes, "The only mode in which man or brute can be useful or happy, with respect either to the generality or to the individual, is to be just, mild, merciful, benevolent, humane, or, at least, innocent or harmless, whether such qualities are natural or not".

As concluded by Morton, "Vegetarianism was many things during the Romantic Period: a cutting edge of bourgeois consumer style; a thread of continuity from the religious radicalism of the seventeenth century; a logical extension of Enlightenment discourse on the rights of women and men". The modern vegetarian movement follows much of the same discourse.

References

Vegetarianism in the Romantic Era Wikipedia