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- Title
Robert Browning's Decoding of Natural Theology in "Caliban upon Setebos".
- Authors
Peterfreund, Stuar
- Abstract
The article presents information on those arguments that can be used on incursions into the scientific sphere to justify the enterprise of natural theology in Robert Browning's "Caliban Upon Setebos." Browning's poem argues along lines not very different from those ascribed to Dr. Newman's "Apology," and those mobilized by poets Robert Boyle and Robert Chambers, if only to show the limits and ultimate irony of any attempt to express such convictions. "Caliban Upon Setebos" is shot through with allusions to Darwinian discourse--both Darwin's natural history and his theoretical work on evolution. Many of the poem's fauna and their environments are discussed at some length in "The Voyage of the Beagle."
- Subjects
CALIBAN upon Setebos (Poem : Browning); NATURAL theology; POETRY (Literary form); BROWNING, Robert, 1812-1889; PHILOSOPHY of nature; NATURAL history; IRONY; VICTORIAN (Literary period)
- Publication
Victorian Poetry, 2005, Vol 43, Issue 3, p317
- ISSN
0042-5206
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.1353/vp.2005.0042