MILTON'S HOSPITAL

A straightforward chronological discussion of Shelley's dietary attitudes and practices throughout his life has rarely been attempted before (apart from the work of Crook and Guiton). The studies of Shelley by those like Medwin, Hogg and Trelawny, who knew him, support the claim that vegetarianism was not confined in material and textual practice to Shelley's early years. Crook and Guiton try to show how Shelley's vegetarianism was medicinal: ‘It is impossible that Shelley's reasons for becoming vegetarian were ethical alone, and that the hope of recovering his health did not affect his decision.’ This supports their claim that Shelley was battling with actual or suspected venereal disease. But a close study of contemporary texts reveals broader set of attitudes.

Shelley was clearly aware of the medicinal claims of a vegetable diet. However, critics have tended to assume that medicine and ideology are separable. This has tended to discredit the force of vegetarian arguments and any relation they might bear to other aspects of his thought and writing. The previous chapter showed that medicine and politics cannot be so easily separated.

The second aim of this chapter is to re-read the hagiography found in nineteenth-century biographies of Shelley. Diet was often used to portray a hermit-like poet who rose above material affairs.