MIDWAY through On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin describes how he scooped mud from a local pond into a breakfast cup. An impressive 537 weeds sprouted over the next six months, suggesting to him how much life can be transported on the feet of water birds. According to literary scholar George Levine, we should be equally impressed that an object as homely as a breakfast cup appears in the most revolutionary text of the 19th century.
In Levine’s view, Darwin’s references to domestic life help to make him a character with whom the reader can identify as he finds “startling” explanations for natural phenomena that…
