"Symbiosis or Death": - Rhodes University

Chapter Five
From Darwinism to Despair: the Material View in A Littoral Zone
Douglas Livingstone uses Darwin’s elegant theory of natural selection as a metaphor for
the inexorable biological process of “life pumping through as anyhow” (from “Cells” 35)
and, in making his readers see that humanity is part of this relentless process of evolution,
reminds us of our ecological position. But, in Livingstone’s view, this position is in
reality one of anthropocentricism and ecological destruction rather than of humanity
knowing its place within the web of life. I therefore use the ecological themes of
evolution and human abuse of nature (or ecological destruction) to explore Livingstone’s
physical element or his material view in A Littoral Zone.
Evolutionary theory
In The Ascent of Science Brian Silver makes this optimistic ecological claim:
[O]f all the revolutions caused by science, Darwin’s struck most dangerously at
the self-image of man. Apart from attacking the literal truth of Genesis, he had
shown man to be an integral part of the animal kingdom. This historic turning
point in our inner world is the factual justification for the increasing number of
people who believe that we are not so much masters of this planet as part of it.
(287)
Livingstone’s examination of Darwinism becomes more pointed in A Littoral
Zone. Four of its 35 poems deal directly with evolution, but they also explore the realms
of contingency and teleology which lie beyond the careful elegance of Darwin’s theory of
natural selection. In these poems Livingstone uses evolutionary theory as a metaphor for
the relentless and interconnected pattern of biological life and makes us aware of the
ecological safety net which supports humankind’s existence on Earth. His work is
informed by James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis and by the theory of evolution and the
philosophical issues connected with it.
Evolution and ecology are inextricably linked, for both take into account the
effect of the environment on living creatures. In an article titled “Organism, Environment
and Literary Representation”, Joseph Carroll claims that “Evolutionists are of necessity
ecological theorists – they understand biological relationships as complex, systemic
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