The literary animal : evolution and the nature of narrative / edited by Jonathan Gottschall and David Sloan Wilson ; forewords by E. O. Wilson and Frederick Crews.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Gottschall, Jonathan.

Wilson, David Sloan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature and science.

Evolution (Biology) in literature.

Human beings in literature.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Physical Description:

xxvi, 304 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Evanston, Ill. : Northwestern University Press, [2005]

Summary:

The Literary Animal brings together essays by scholars at the forefront of the new field of evolutionary literary analysis-both literary analysts who have made evolution their explanatory framework and evolutionist scientists who have taken a serious interest in literature-to show how to the human propensity for literature and art can be properly framed as a true evolutionary problem. Their work is an important step toward the long-prophesied synthesis of the humanities and what Steven Pinker calls the "new sciences of human nature."

Contents:

Foreword from the scientific side / E.O. Wilson

Foreword from the literary side / Frederick Crews

Introduction : Literature

a last frontier in human evolutionary studies / Jonathan Gotttschall and David Sloan Wilson

Part I. Evolution and literary theory

Literature, science, and human nature / Ian McEwan

Evolutionary social constructivism / David Sloan Wilson

From Lacan to Darwin / Dylan Evans

What happens in Hamlet? Exploring the psychological foundations of drama / Daniel Nettle

Human nature and literary meaning : a theoretical model illustrated with a critique of Pride and prejudice / Joseph Carroll

The problem of romantic love : Shakespeare and evolutionary psychology / Marcus Nordlund

Male bonding in the epics and romances / Robin Fox

Part II. The evolutionary riddle of art

Evolutionary theories of art / Brian Boyd

Reverse-engineering narrative : evidence of special design / Michelle Scalise Sugiyama

Part III. Darwinian theory and scientific methods

Quantitative literary study : a modest manifesto and testing the hypotheses of feminist fairy tale studies / Jonathan Gottschall

Proper hero dads and dark hero cads : alternate mating strategies exemplified in British romantic literature / Daniel J. Kruger, Maryanne Fisher, Ian Jobling

Crossing the abyss : erotica and the intersection of evolutionary psychology and literary studies / Catherine Salmon

Afterword / Denis Dutton.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0810122863

0810122871

OCLC:

57730742