Twitter
Advertisement

Ruth Padel sees poetry in science

Ruth Padel’s unconventional biography of her great-great-grandfather Charles Darwin, Darwin: A life in poems, brings out the man behind the naturalist.

Latest News
article-main
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

A request by the Natural History Museum, London, for a few poems on her great-great-grandfather Charles Darwin eventually had Ruth Padel writing an unconventional biography of the revered naturalist. A biography devoid of all the ills that plague its ilk — “thick and heavy volumes, for one” — her Darwin: A Life in Poems brings out erstwhile undiscovered sides to him — that of a conscientious human, a tender husband and an affectionate father.

He took evolution further, to almost every aspect of life, even morality, she found. Her words throb with life as she follows Darwin through his life. “His mother died when he was eight, but he chose to repress her memories. He poured his intensity into newt collecting, and observing. Eventually, he evolved from repression to expression,” says Padel.

The poetry collection gives you snapshots of Darwin’s life —– touching upon everything important. Padel stays true to the tale by borrowing heavily from Darwin’s personal journals, stories her grandmother told her about her forbear. His stint studying divinity at his father’s insistence, the voyage on HMS Beagle that changed his life, his doubts on to marry or not, whether to go for the comfort of ‘a warm house with a soft wife on the sofa’, how after figuring out the theory of natural selection he decided to try it, children and his tenderness for them, writing the Origin of Species, later The Descent of Man … Padel tells it in rich verse.

Science, love and family are seamlessly married in her poems. “It isn’t a marriage between science and poetry,” she insists. “Rather, it is finding poetry in science.” To Darwin, science is just as aesthetic as poetry. “Biology or science has to prove and disprove. A good scientist is like a pilgrim, who is in search of God, but never gets there, he believed,” she says.

Much to the dismay of his wife, “he told her how man has devil as his ancestor in the form of baboon,” Padel says. Clearly, Darwin had a sense of humour. He often laughed at himself and his was a marriage saved by many laughs, she adds. (Chapter Five: The coat of fur (1851-1882))

Social issues during Darwin’s time find a place in the book. “Slavery horrified him. He saw a slave auction in Brazil and quarrelled with the captain of the Beagle who almost threw him out. They later decided never to talk of slavery again,” she says. Darwin expected a revolution, and hoped he will never see another slave country. During the Sepoy mutiny in India, he was in furious correspondence with his friend in India, she says.

Her splendid book stands testimony to the fact that science and poetry aren’t poles that cannot meet. “Poetry is like wine. Like how wine can be made from almost anything, there’s poetry in everything,” she says. She finds beauty everywhere, and shows it to us with her poems.

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement