About this book
A captivating portrait of the poet and the scientist who shared an enchanted view of nature.
Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin were born at a time when the science of studying the natural world was known as natural philosophy, a pastime for poets, priests, and schoolgirls. The world began to change in the 1830s, while Darwin was exploring the Pacific aboard the Beagle and Dickinson was a student in Amherst, Massachusetts. Poetry and science started to grow apart, and modern thinkers challenged the old orthodoxies, offering thrilling new perspectives that suddenly felt radical – and too dangerous for women.
Natural Magic intertwines the stories of these two luminary nineteenth-century minds whose thoughts and writings captured the awesome possibilities of the new sciences and at the same time strove to preserve the magic of nature. Just as Darwin's work was informed by his roots in natural philosophy and his belief in the interconnectedness of all life, Dickinson's poetry was shaped by her education in botany, astronomy, and chemistry, and by her fascination with the enchanting possibilities of Darwinian science. Casting their two very different careers in an entirely fresh light, Renée Bergland brings to life a time when ideas about science were rapidly evolving, and reshaped by poets, scientists, philosophers, and theologians alike. She paints a colourful portrait of a remarkable century that transformed how we see the natural world.
Illuminating and insightful, Natural Magic explores how Dickinson and Darwin refused to accept the separation of art and science. Today, more than ever, we need to reclaim their shared sense of ecological wonder.
Contents
Preface: An Orchis’ Heart
Introduction: An Enchanted World
Chapter 1. Darwin and Dickinson, Childhood Portraits
Chapter 2. Darwin the Naturalist Shropshire, Edinburgh, Cambridge, 1809–1831; Darwin, to Age 22
Chapter 3. Nature’s People: Scientific Amherst Amherst, 1830–1836; Dickinson, to Age 6
Chapter 4. Juggler, Geologist, Dark Horse Aboard the Beagle, 1832–1836; Darwin, Age 23–27
Chapter 5. Dickinson the Bold Amherst, 1836–1847; Dickinson, Age 6–16
Chapter 6. The Leading Scientific Men London and Amherst, 1836–1845
Chapter 7. Religion of Geology South Hadley, Amherst, 1847–1851; Dickinson, Age 16–20
Chapter 8. A Slow-Sailing Ship Downe, Great Malvern, 1842–1851; Darwin, Age 33–42
Chapter 9. Excitement in the Village Amherst, 1851–1857; Dickinson, Age 20–26
Chapter 10. On the Origin of Species Downe; 1858–1860; Darwin; Age 49–51
Chapter 11 If You Saw a Bullet Amherst, 1857–1861; Dickinson, Age 26–31
Chapter 12. Wild Experiment Downe and Amherst, 1860–1862
Chapter 13. Melody or Witchcraft? Amherst, 1862–1866
Chapter 14. Mutual Friends Downe and Amherst, 1866–1882
Chapter 15. Perfectly Disinterested: Darwin’s Last Days
Chapter 16. Nature Is a Haunted House: Dickinson Faces Death
Afterword: Hope Is a Strange Invention Darwin and Dickinson in the Twenty-First Century
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliographic Note
Bibliography
Index
Customer Reviews
Biography
Renée Bergland is a professor of literature and creative writing at Simmons University. She is the author of Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer among the American Romantics and The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects.
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