In 1858, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace jointly presented their theory of evolution by natural selection to the Linnean Society. This public announcement preceded the publication of Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' the following year. Their theory, which offered a mechanism for how organisms change over time, was a major scientific breakthrough and one of the most transformative ideas in human history.

The Darwin-Wallace theory provided a powerful and controversial new framework for understanding life and humanity's place within it. Poets and philosophers of the Victorian and Modernist eras were compelled to respond to its implications, which challenged traditional religious beliefs and ideas about human purpose and meaning. The idea of a 'struggle for existence' became a central theme in literature and has had a lasting influence on poetry.