“I wish no living thing to suffer pain”.: Percy Bysshe Shelley e la dieta vegetariana

Abstract

Percy Bysshe Shelley began a mild form of vegetable diet. In many of his works (A Refutation of Deism, e Revolt of Islam, Prometheus Unbound, Alastor) Shelley dealt with the issue of natural diet, not only illustrating its physical benefits, but also stressing the philosophical and ethical significance of his radical choice. Shelley is now in fact regarded as a sort of tutelary deity by the evergrowing followers of vegetarian and vegan movements, and quotes from his works regularly appear on the homepages of the most popular vegetarian websites. My paper will focus on the origin and development of Shelley’s vegetarianism and his literary and scientific sources through the analysis of Queen Mab and the Notes to Queen Mab.