The Shelleys’ Tried Bodies in their Travel Literature
Résumé
This chapter shows that behind the sublime and romantic dimension of the Shelleys' travels, which is what the reader usually remembers, there is a more down-to-earth reality that affects their bodies, from exhaustion partly caused by the 'vegetable diet', through sprained ankles to death. At the same time, physical weakness may be used as a narrative tool to turn the travel experience into a more exciting adventure, while even death is turned into myth, as in the account of Percy Bysshe's cremation by Edward John Trelawny.