Vegetarianism and Veganism in Literature from the Ancients to the Twenty-First Century

This book provides a historical overview of literary vegetarianism and veganism in a cross-cultural context.

Theophilus Savvas (Author)

9781009287258, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 June 2024

264 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.1 cm, 0.54 kg

'What we have here is a monograph in food studies that transforms the field as a whole. The scope of this project is expansive, the analysis is consistently delightful, and the argument is original, making an important contribution to literary histories of vegetarianism.' Gitanjali Shahani, San Francisco State University

Vegetarianism and Veganism in Literature from the Ancients to the Twenty-First Century re-assesses both canonical and less well-known literary texts to illuminate how vegetarianism and veganism can be understood as literary phenomena, as well as dietary and cultural practices. It offers a broad historical span ranging from ancient thinkers and writers, such as Pythagoras and Ovid, to contemporary novelists, including Ruth L. Ozeki and Jonathan Franzen. The expansive historical scope is complemented by a cross-cultural focus which emphasises that the philosophy behind these diets has developed through a dialogic relationship between east and west. The book demonstrates, also, the way in which carnivorism has functioned as an ideology, one which has underpinned actions harmful to both human and non-human animals.

1. 'Everybody eating everyone else'
2. Pythagoreans
or, Vegetarians before 'Vegetarianism'
3. Vegetarianism and the Utopian Novel
4. Vegetarianism as Religion
5. Vegetarianism in the Fiction of Women's Liberation
6. Animal Abstinence in the Anthropocene
7. 'Pity the meat!': Ideology, Metaphor, Violence
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]