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I’ve spent the last year of my life researching this poem, and I’ve read it no less than twenty times. It may not sound like a lot, but with nine cantos, thousands of lines, six essays attached to it along with notes, it’s taken up a lot of my reading time. Of course, I’m not complaining. It’s a beautiful piece of writing. It’s been so much fun to write my dissertation on it.

So what’s it all about? Essentially, Shelley relays his philosophy for life; he explains how he thinks man should live, and how man should embrace what he defines as nature. And within the poem, and its essays, this sense of nature is defined as vegetarianism. This is a central theme, one that unifies his anti-establishment ideas, agnosticism and environmental outlook. Shelley gives a vision at the end of the poem, one where man and animal live in a sense of peace and harmony; it is a world of interspecies equality and ecological sustainably. It is one where mankind respects the natural world and walks among it: it's a utopian future.

Here’s one of the main sections:

“And man, once fleeting o'er the transient scene
Swift as an unremembered vision, stands
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 humors 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.
No longer now the wingèd 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 extend
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." (Canto VIII, Lines 219-238).

(-A green paradise of peace?)

Now I found this incredibly fascinating when I was reading it. Two hundred years ago this poet produced this radical argument; this argument for change. And it really is “out there.� The Romantic generation called for revolution and a change in politics of the day, but none are quite as far left and extreme as the arguments here. The arguments are not limited to the human world, but extend into the non-human. So I had to write my dissertation on it. I had to try and understand what gave birth to these ideas, and what the full implications of them were. I also wanted to look into the legacy of these arguments. As extreme as these suggestions for change may seem, they are not entirely exclusive to this one man. These arguments do, indeed, linger on to the present day.

They are in different forms, of course, and most of the idealistic qualities are gone, but elements of them can be seen in modern day Green parties, environmentalist movements and even animal rights organisations. Though, strictly speaking, these are typically modern constructs. What I wanted to explore, and perhaps try to understand, is how Shelley came about these ideas. They are unique amongst his generation, and have almost been shaped by his eclectic reading tastes. He read everything from Plato to Godwin, from scientific papers through to political pamphlets. And his arguments would go on to influence Ghandi, George Bernard Shaw and Robert Browning.

There is a fair bit of scholarship on Shelley’s diet, though not as much as there should be. I’ve really enjoyed writing on this topic, and the further I’ve got into it the more I’ve realised that there is so much more to be done on this. Within my writing, I’ve attempted to capture Shelley’s argument and to understand its implications- perhaps beyond the context in which he wrote them. But that’s only within the limitations of this poem and its essays. I’d love to research this across his body of writing and perhaps even Romanticism as a whole. There were many other influential vegetarians in the era, that’s for sure. (Time will tell, but this could be a possible basis for my PhD research.)

Some readers would likely contest my claims about this work, but that’s what my dissertation is about: to argue for this reading. I’ve written it all up now, and I have two weeks left to edit it and to try and make it as strong as possible. Here’s to hoping I get the grades I need!

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