Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles about twentieth-century literature. In this essay, he explores the significance of the many parallels in the poem betweenDarwin and Shakespeare's character Prospero.

Schnackenberg's "Darwin in 1881" interweaves past and present not only in the personal life of Charles Darwin but also in the evolution of the natural world thatDarwin documented so exhaustively. The mood of the poem is somber, conveying the sense of a long and busy life drawing to a close. The naturalist does not look back on his life of scientific discovery with any sense of accomplishment. In spite of his vast knowledge, all he is now aware of from his many years of study is that everything in nature "will grow small, fade, disappear." TheDarwin of the poem is aware only of absences, of vanishings, of things in nature that formerly were and...