Article: “King Wenceslaus Goes Vegan”

“King Wenceslaus Goes Vegan” article published

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King Wenceslaus Goes Vegan

Animal abuse and violence have no place in the Christmas season. Modern celebrants of Christmas, therefore, look to retain the values associated with this culturally rich holiday while refusing to grace, legitimize, or tolerate violent practices.

The Christmas hymn “Good King Wenceslas” was written in 1853 by John Mason Neale.  This song has been a standard part of the Christmas celebration since that time.  People who celebrate Christmas, whether in non-religious vegan holiday spirit or in the non-violent Christian tradition, generally recoil at the third verse as originally written, in which the king calls for “flesh.”  It’s unclear whether this line is intended to be a declaration of cannibalism or simple necrovory.  Whatever the case, this repulsive passage is clearly out of character with the rest of the story, in which the King is portrayed as kind, strong, courageous, and generous.

Thus, in order to bring this carol back into working order, a non-violent adaptation is provided below, in which “flesh” is replaced with “bread.”  This replacement is advantageous, because it (i) retains the single syllable and (ii) the essential vowel sound of the original lyric while (iii) eliminating the violent and rather disgusting cannibalism/necrovory and (iv) evoking more appropriate imagery: bread being the “staff of life” is much more powerful in and suitable for this context than is imagery of death and a rotting corpse.

Please feel free to use these lyrics in your Christmas caroling henceforth!

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Good King Wenceslas

Original lyrics: John Mason Neale; Adaptation: S. E. Harrison.

1. Good King Wenceslas looked out
on the feast of Stephen,
when the snow lay round about,
deep, and crisp, and even;
brightly shone the moon that night,
though the frost was cruel,
when a poor man came in sight,
gath’ring winter fuel.

2. ‘Hither, page, and stand by me,
if thou know’st it, telling:
yonder peasant, who is he,
where and what his dwelling?’
‘Sire, he lives a good league hence,
underneath the mountain,
right against the forest fence,
by St. Agnes’ fountain.’

3. ‘Bring me bread and bring me wine,
bring me pine logs hither;
thou and I will see him dine,
when we bear them thither.’
Page and monarch, forth they went,
forth they went together;
through the rude wind’s wild lament,
and the bitter weather.

4. ‘Sire, the night is darker now,
and the wind blows stronger;
fails my heart, I know not how;
I can go no longer.’
‘Mark my footsteps, my good page;
tread thou in them boldly:
thou shalt find the winter’s rage
freeze your blood less coldly.’

5. In his master’s steps he trod,
where the snow lay dinted;
heat was in the very sod
which the Saint had printed.
Therefore, Christians all, be sure,
wealth or rank possessing,
ye who now will bless the poor,
shall yourselves find blessing.

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Article: “Silent Night” Turns 200: Non-Violent English-Language Translation/Adaptation Now Available

“Silent Night” Turns 200: Non-Violent English-Language Translation/Adaptation Now Available article published

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“Silent Night” Turns 200: Non-Violent English-Language Translation/Adaptation Now Available

The famous Christmas hymn “Silent Night” (“Stille Nacht”) was first performed on the night of Dec 24-25, 1818.   Joseph Mohr wrote the lyrics in 1816, and Franz Gruber set them to music in 1818 for the Christmas Mass of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria.  This song has endured ever since that time as one of the most universally recognized Christmas carols and hymns.  “Silent Night” is one of the songs that was sung by opposing forces during the Christmas truce of 1914. This hymn has been declared a UNESCO cultural heritage piece and is one of the most highly recorded songs of all times.

Modern Christmas celebrants in general as well as vegan Christians who embrace non-violence in particular, however, reject a portion of the original text that includes a tacit recognition of animal exploitation, enslavement, and slaughter, namely, the phrase that includes a reference to “shepherds.” In order to bring the text into line with the spirit of kindness universally associated with the Christmas holiday and with the non-violence values particularly associated with original Christian teachings, a new English translation/adaptation—a “veganized” adaptation—is provided below.

This translation/adaptation is identical to the pre-existing English translation (mainly by John Young) except that the clause “Shepherds quake” has been replaced with “Stars awake.”  This replacement has the virtue of (i) eliminating the animal-abuse text while (ii) retaining the original meter and “-ake” sound of the well-known English-language translation and (iii) also tying into the rest of the second verse more effectively, since the remainder of this verse pertains to sky-related concepts or symbols (e.g., “heaven” and “heavenly”).  Retaining the poetics of a line is an essential task of veganizing a classic work.

Please feel free to use this text henceforth in your Christmas celebrations!

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Silent Night

Lyrics: Joseph Mohr; Music: Franz Gruber; English translation:  John Yong; English adaptation: S. E. Harrison

1. Silent night, holy night,
all is calm, all is bright
round yon virgin
mother and child.
Holy infant, so tender and mild,
sleep in heavenly peace,
sleep in heavenly peace.

2. Silent night, holy night,
stars awake at the sight;
glories stream from heaven afar,
heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born!

3. Silent night, holy night,
Son of God, love’s pure light;
radiant beams from thy holy face
with the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth,
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.

4. Silent night, holy night,
wondrous star, lend thy light;
with the angels let us sing,
Alleluia to our King;
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born!

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Article: “Veganizing Process, #3: ‘Coach-and-six’ and horse-drawn carriages”

“Veganizing Process, #3: “Coach-and-six” and horse-drawn carriages” article published

Veganizing Process, #3: “Coach-and-six” and horse-drawn carriages

By the time Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol (1843), massive social and economic changes wrought by steam power were well underway. At the same time, however, automated power, such as steam-powered trains and boats, coexisted alongside animal-exploitation-based forms of transportation that were still very much in use, such as animal-powered vehicles. A term we use today to describe the power produced by a gas-powered automobile engine—“horsepower”—reflects the historical reality that, for thousands of years, animals were used as the primary means of land transportation for humans (other than humans simply walking under their own power!).

Horse-drawn carriages, of course, are a classic example of animal exploitation, abuse, and cruelty. Horses are made to suffer all manner of hardship through their training and subsequent life of labor as pulling slaves. Under the basic reasons for veganizing a work, just as in the example of horse-racing, passages including animal-drawn vehicles should, therefore, be edited to eliminate the exploitative content.

“Coach-and-six” description of Jabob Marley’s staircase

Horse-drawn vehicles make some appearances in A Christmas Carol. One of those is in a comparison that occurs early in Stave 2. Here’s the passage in the original form:

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom.

This passage, complete with signature Dickensian colloquial embellishment, is intended to show that the staircase in Marley’s house is wide. The “coach-and-six” phrase refers to a horse-drawn carriage (the “coach”) and the horses  forced to pull it (i.e., six horses; the phrase “coach-and-six” would indicate four horses). Use of an animal-exploitation based comparison is unnecessary, of course, to demonstrate that Marley’s staircase is wide; thus, a world of possible veganizing editorial choices are available here.

Veganizing with “steam engine”

Under the minimally invasive principle, ideally we would excise the portion of the passage as cleanly as possible and replace it with content that serves the intended function and fits the context. Thus, just as steam power and other forms of machine-generated power were in the process of replacing animal exploitation, replacement of this reference with a machine-produced power reference makes sense.

Meanwhile, Dickens himself uses the word “locomotive” later in the same paragraph, a reference that, while not inherently referring specifically to steam power, would have likely evoked steam-powered “locomotives” for many readers and listeners who had been exposed to the train engines that had, by 1843, come into widespread use. This “locomotive” reference presents a fortuitous opportunity to tie into the rest of the paragraph in accordance with the serendipity principle for veganizing a work.  Thus,  in this portion of the text of A Vegan Christmas Carol, the “coach-and-six” phrase has been veganized by way of replacement with the phrase “steam engine” such that the passage now reads:

You may talk vaguely about driving a steam engine up a good old flight of stairs. . . .

Time-and-place compatibility, and context-and-author awareness

This case serves to demonstrate another principle to retain when veganizing a classic text: that of not introducing anachronisms. We would not want to introduce a reference to, say, gasoline-powered automobiles into a Dickens work, since these vehicles were yet to come. In the present case, since steam engines of various sorts were already in widespread use at the time and location in which A Christmas Carol is set—Dickens himself had traveled to the U.S. in 1842 by way of a steam-powered boat—, such a replacement is a time-and-place-compatible substitute for the original phrase. Moreover, vehicles driven by a steam engine clearly appear in other portions of Dickens work, such that the veganizing choice made here embodies an awareness of the context and author of the original work.

Article: “‘More of gravy than of grave’: notes on the veganizing process, part 2”

“‘More of gravy than of grave’: notes on the veganizing process, part 2” article published_____

“More of gravy than of grave”: notes on the veganizing process, part 2

Virtually every page—indeed, virtually every paragraph—of Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol includes some salient moment.   The work is so imaginative, so densely filled with action and meaning, and so widely known and beloved that almost every one of these salient moments is someone’s “favorite part.”  Many people will recognize such a moment, perhaps even be eagerly anticipating it.  When that passage arrives, readers and listeners may be disappointed if any heavy-handed meddling has been done.  Thus, when veganizing such a salient passage, the light touch of a “minimally invasive” approach is particularly necessary.

“More of gravy than of grave about you”

Ebenezer Scrooge’s quip, in Stave 1, about there being “more gravy than grave” in Jacob Marley’s ghost is one such salient moment.  Here, Scrooge is trying to argue with Marley’s ghost, seeking to establish the point that Marley’s ghost is actually just a figment of Scrooge’s imagination. Scrooge’s theory is that Marley’s ghostly visitation is but a hallucination, one that is likely to have been caused by some malfunction in Scrooge’s senses, perhaps the result of Scrooge’s stomach having been upset by something that he ate. Scrooge summarizes this argument in the final quip, which reads, in relevant part:

“There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

The line is brilliant for several reasons:  alliteration and internal rhyme; apt summation of the argument being made; revelation of some of the internal workings of Scrooge’s mind.  Changing but a single letter—the ending “-y” to “-e”—to achieve such a stroke is a fair instance of poetics.

Need to veganize

Generally speaking, a principle to which the Veganized Classics Series adheres is that, if a word has a vegan meaning and a non-vegan meaning that is plausible in the context of the original work, that word can remain unaltered. While vegan gravy does exist today, the reality is that “gravy” in its origin and in the time and place in which A Christmas Carol is set was made from and defined in terms of the juices of a dead body of an animal.  A vegan gravy-like item would have been called something like a “sauce” in Scrooge’s day, such as the “apple-sauce” that is expressly mentioned later in the book.

Thus, the choice, while perhaps not absolutely necessary, was made to veganize this word in the making of A Vegan Christmas Carol.

“Gravy” to “grain”

The challenge in veganizing a passage with this level of artistry and memorability is to retain the essential meaning while also preserving its beautiful form.

Fortunately, the English language comprises a word for a plant-based item that works very well, both to retain the poetics of the line and the role that the line serves in the argument Scrooge is making: the word “grain.”

Originally, the poetics include recurrence of four identical letters:  gravy and grave.  The veganized form gets very close:  grain and grave.

Moreover, the meter is slightly improved:  “gravy than of grave about you” has three essentially unaccented syllables in a row—not a strong form, and one that is not used elsewhere in the sentence.  But “grain than of grave about you” sets up a very pleasurable and catchy meter:  / u u / u u /.

Editorial opportunism: capitalizing on serendipity

This instance exemplifies the sort of happy accident for which one should be on the lookout when veganizing a work.  It’s editorial opportunism:  if the language happens to present an opportunity to retain both the literary substance and the poetic form of a line, we should be ready to take full advantage of that opportunity. Such a happy accident allows the line to be read or heard by someone who already knows and loves the line without missing anything—or perhaps without even noticing that the line has been veganized.

This case can be used as another touchstone, a prime example of the type of serendipity we’re looking for when we are trying to veganize a passage, particularly one that is very well-known and well-written and, therefore, needs to be handled with delicate care.

Article: “Part 1: Veganizing process for A Vegan Christmas Carol”

“Part 1: Veganizing process for A Vegan Christmas Carol” article published

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Part 1: Veganizing Process for “A Vegan Christmas Carol”

A Vegan Christmas Carol:  Veganization Note #1

Some editorial and re-authoring choices to be made in the veganizing process are pretty straightforward.  In this series pertaining to A Vegan Christmas Carol, beginning with an example of this straightforward editing / re-authoring type makes sense, as it can later serve as a touchstone when facing more difficult choices.

“… panting like race-horses….”

The original text of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol includes the following passage, which refers to Scrooge and his workmate, Dick Wilkins, who are busily preparing their workplace for Fezziwig’s big Christmas party:

You wouldn’t believe how those two fellows [Ebenezer Scrooge and Dick Wilkins] went at it!  They charged into the street with the shutters—one, two, three—had ’em up in their places—four, five, six—barred ’em and pinned ’em—seven, eight, nine—and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

Clearly, the reference to racehorses will not survive the veganizing process:  the so-called “sport” of horse-racing is violent, cruel, and often fatal for the horses involved.

Chosen method for editing / re-authoring the passage

At this point, the editor can either (i) delete the reference to horses and horse-racing altogether, thus “abridging” the underlying work to a small degree, or (ii) replace it with a suitable substitute of similar meaning, content, style, length, and so on.  In either case, we would want to avoid excising any more material than necessary.  In A Vegan Christmas Carol, the latter choice was made, such that the last phrase of the passage now reads:

… panting like two boys after a race…..

This approach allows us to keep the intended meaning of the last phrase, retain the strong visual image of “panting,” and even retain the reference to racing—all while excluding the animal exploitation imagery.

This type of “minimally invasive” approach provides an excellent example of what we’ll strive to achieve when veganizing other passages.

Article: “Veganizing process for A Vegan Christmas Carol: Introduction”

“Veganizing process for A Vegan Christmas Carol: Introduction” article published

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Veganizing Process for “A Vegan Christmas Carol”: Introduction

The process of veganizing a classic work of literature requires keeping in mind a number of disparate criteria.  These range from historical considerations—for instance, what types of food were available at a particular point in time—to vocabulary—what types of words were in the given author’s toolkit—to many other considerations.

The upcoming series of posts will explain some of the choices that were made in veganizing Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” for the first edition of “A Vegan Christmas Carol.”

Those who are not familiar with vegan literary theory are invited to review the article that sets the stage for the general field.