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| | Twentieth Century Literature: Natural history and epiphany: Elizabeth Bishop's Darwin Letter (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20) |
 | | In her next letter to Stevenson, Bishop writes of finding a reference to Darwin in William Carlos Williams's "Asphodel, that greeny flower," a reference that is "not in [her] sense, at all" (Letter 23 Mar. 1964), and it is crucial to distinguish Bishop's Darwin from Williams's. |
 | | Darwin and his colleagues have little in common with the lab-coated figures that Eliot's imagery summons up, and one must leave behind certain ideas about the disinterestedness and impersonality of science and its emphasis on precision and specialization in order to understand what exactly Bishop is invoking when she chooses Darwin as her artistic model. |
 | | Darwin, rather than specializing, published on a wide array of subjects, including among other things coral reefs, mould, barnacles, worms, orchids, insectivorous plants, the expression of emotion, and, of course, species. |
| www.teenja.com /p/articles/mi_m0403/is_3_50/ai_n12413257/pg_2?pi=tnj (1158 words) |
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