'heightening his imagination with his appetite': Performing Vegetarianism and Consuming Spirits in The Blithedale Romance

In this paper, I argue that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance (1852) can be productively read as a parodic dietary reform ghost story—a cautionary tale against total abstention from flesh that is also palpably... [ view full abstract ]

In this paper, I argue that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance (1852) can be productively read as a parodic dietary reform ghost story—a cautionary tale against total abstention from flesh that is also palpably haunted by the category of the non-human. Although many scholars have commented separately on the position of spiritualism, masculinity, and the gaze in Hawthorne’s romance, few if any have attempted to understand how these discourses interact with the text’s preoccupation with performative weight-reduction, flesh consumption, and the species divide. This paper reveals that the text posits a scopophilic, utopian eating practice, which I call “immaculate consumption,” that allows readers to envision Miles Coverdale’s abstention from flesh as an erotic performance, thereby troubling the imagined relationship between flesh consumption and carnality; bodily abstention and spiritual communion.