The essay examines how Melville's “The Encantadas” reveals the colonial underpinnings of seemingly disinterested nineteenth-century natural history, particularly Darwin's The Voyage of the “Beagle.” Whereas Darwin's formulation of the Galapagos Islands grants readers dominion over exotic lands, Melville's slippery islands defy the classification-as-preparation-for-occupation scheme of texts like Darwin's.

This content is only available as a PDF.
© 2007 by The New England Quarterly
2007
You do not currently have access to this content.