Natural history and epiphany: Elizabeth Bishop's Darwin Letter.(Critical Essay)

From: Twentieth Century Literature | Date: September 22, 2004| Author: Pickard, Zachariah | Copyright information

Writing in his Autobiography about the joys of beetle collecting and, particularly, the pleasure of discovering a new species, Charles Darwin makes an interesting comparison: 

     No poet ever felt more delighted at seeing his first poem published 
     than I did at seeing, in Stephens' Illustrations of British 
     Insects, the magic words, "captured by C. Darwin, Esq." (21)

Here Darwin compares the simplest of his accomplishments--the capture of a new beet...

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