Darwin's Bards : British and American Poetry in the Age of Evolution

A comprehensive study of Darwin’s legacy for religion, ecology and the arts. Includes over 50 complete poems and long extracts with an interpretative framework and close readings. Poets examined include Tennyson, Browning, Hardy, Frost, Ted Hughes, Pattiann Rogers and Edwin Morgan.

The first comprehensive study of how poets have responded to the ideas of Charles Darwin in over fifty yearsIn Darwin’s Bards John Holmes argues that poetry can have a profound impact on how we think and feel about the human condition in a Darwinian world. Including over fifty complete poems and substantial extracts from several more, Holmes shows how poets from Tennyson and Browning, through Hardy and Frost, to Ted Hughes, Pattiann Rogers and Edwin Morgan have responded to the discovery of evolution. Written for scientists, philosophers and ecologists, as well as poets, critics and students of literature, Darwin’s Bards is a timely intervention into the heated debates over Darwin’s legacy for religion, ecology and the arts. The book will appeal to readers for its discussion of the existential implications of Darwinism, for its close readings of poetry, and for the reprinted poems themselves. Key FeaturesCovers poetry and ecology, as well as the implications of Darwinism for religionThe combination of complete poems and long extracts with an interpretative framework and close readings makes the book an effective and attractive text book