NEWSFOCUS

Red in Tooth and Claw Among the Literati

Upset by the isolation of their fi eld, some critics are trying to bring Darwin’s ideas and recent science to the study of literature. They haven’t been popular

IN THE EARLY 1990S JOSEPH CARROLL, AN English professor at the University of Mis- souri, St. Louis, presented a paper on the possibility of studying literature through the lens of Darwinian evolution. Not long afterward, he heard from a colleague that the paper had generated lots of discus-

sion, though not for the most fl attering rea- on May 5, 2011 son. “People didn’t think that anyone in literary studies cared about such things,” Carroll recalls. “There was an argument over whether it was a hoax.” Carroll was indeed serious. For 2 decades prior, Freudianism, Marxism, poststructur- alism, postcolonialism, and other fashion- able “isms” had dominated the academic study of literature. These schools dismissed www.sciencemag.org the idea that evolutionary pressures have shaped human nature, attributing all human nature to culture instead. Frustrated by this thinking, which he has grumbled is “unable we spend 4 hours per day consuming, dis- Steven Pinker and biologist Edward O. to contribute in any useful way to the serious cussing, and creating stories, and 4 minutes Wilson of Harvard University and biologist world of adult knowledge,” Carroll rebelled. per day having sex.) David Sloan Wilson of Binghamton Univer-

In 1994, he helped found a new field by Most scientific lit scholars incorpo- sity in New York state. In contrast, apply- Downloaded from publishing his self-described “big, baggy rate at least some evolution into their work ing evolutionary thought to the human mind monster,” Evolution and Literary Theory, a because evolution provides a framework for has never been popular in the humanities, 536-page book promoting an approach to understanding human behavior. And many and scientifi c lit crit has met with bemuse- literature based on evolution science. focus on evolution- ment and occasional hostility. (Three Carroll wasn’t alone in his despondency. ary psychology Online scholars who used scientifi c ideas in their Other literary scholars have described their because it explores analyses were denounced as “protofascists” sciencemag.org fi eld as “a backwater” and “embarrassingly the origins of men- Podcast interview at a prominent academic meeting for liter- out of step” with science. Following Carroll, tal phenomena, with author ary scholars in the 1990s by a critic who some began incorporating neuroscience, including narra- Sam Kean. admitted he hadn’t read their work.) cognitive science, anthropology, and— tives and aesthetics, But since 2007, the number of books most prominently and controversially— and can bridge evolutionary biology and the and articles incorporating Darwinian and evolutionary psychology into their work. humanities. Some recent evopsychology also other scientifi c thought into literary studies Some of that work reads like traditional, emphasizes the plasticity of the human mind, has more than doubled, Carroll says. Carroll pre-1970s English scholarship: discussions which helps explain how universal human himself released a new book in March, Read- of tone, style, context, and theme. But it also behaviors (such as storytelling) can exist but ing Human Nature, which summarizes the explores how evolution might have shaped can nevertheless be expressed in different accomplishments of evolutionary criticism SCIENCE aspects of literature. On a deeper level, writ- ways in different cultures. and anticipates where it might be headed. ers investigate the potential adaptive benefi ts Straddling multiple fi elds, this analysis It’s not a unifi ed fi eld; some of its members of storytelling for our Pleistocene ancestors has earned a mixed response. Carroll says in fact distance themselves from Carroll. and the mystery of why humans spend so most scientists encourage his work: Sup- But these scholars are united in one sense:

much time immersed in it. (By one measure, porters include evolutionary psychologist They’re convinced not only that evolution- M.TWOMBLY/ CREDIT:

654 6 MAY 2011 VOL 332 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS NEWSFOCUS ary thought can improve literary research but wrote with psychologists John A. Johnson tionary benefi t by bringing societies, espe- also that literature can teach scientists a thing and Daniel Kruger, they asked hundreds of cially oral societies, closer together and or two about human evolution. literary experts to rate their attitudes toward fostering cohesion. Ellen Dissanayake, antagonists and protagonists in 201 Victo- a professor of music at the University of Out with Freud, in with Darwin rian novels and then tabulated the numbers. Washington, Seattle, has argued that all the Humanities scholars have criticized scientifi c They found that experts rated antagonists as arts generally fulfi ll this purpose and are lit crit as too general or too reductive to say overtly dominant and selfi sh, whereas pro- therefore adaptive. anything meaningful about individual works. tagonists displayed altruistic and selfless Evolutionary biologist Geoffrey Miller Pinker makes a similar argument, saying that behavior. In one sense this is trivial: Good of the University of New Mexico, Albuquer- although the approach may help us identify guys are good, bad guys bad. But the authors que, has argued instead that literature and how our craving for fi ction evolved, he’s not argue that experts overwhelmingly perceived other arts arose through sexual selection. In convinced it will enrich our understanding of consistent “prosocial” behavior among char- brief, in his view, a talent for storytelling pro- specifi c texts. acters that people root for. vided evidence of a big brain and language In his new book, Carroll contests these Carroll and his colleagues skills, which make someone claims, saying that science can offer insight then drew on anthropologi- a more attractive mate. Lit- into even the most pored-over works in the cal research to argue why erature was our peacock tail. canon. In a chapter devoted to Hamlet, he this behavior appeals. In our Boyd sees some truth explores the neuroscience of depression, fraught hunter-gatherer days, in both the social-cohesion among other topics. Carroll also cites the when humans roamed about and sexual-selection mod- work of Michelle Scalise Sugiyama, a cog- in small bands, people had to els, though he’s less keen on nitive scientist at the University of Oregon, sacrifi ce selfi sh interests and the latter. Sexual selection Eugene, who reinterpreted the Oedipus trag- work together, or they’d perish. usually results in divergent edies. Standard commentary has been dom- In contrast, self-aggrandizing behavior between the sexes,

inated by Freudian theories about people’s or dominant behavior threat- and both males and females on May 5, 2011 repressed desires to have sex with their par- ened group survival. Victorian (despite some differences in ents, but she argues that, in light of wide- novels, in this view, merely taste) indulge just as readily spread anthropological evidence of cultural dress up these ancient, evolved in fi ction. Boyd calls sexual taboos against incest, that reading simply preferences in crinolines and selection “another gear, but isn’t tenable. top hats. Most humanities not the engine” that drove Another examination of the classics is If fiction does reinforce the evolution of storytelling. The Rape of Troy by Jonathan Gottschall, cooperative and egalitarian scholarship today Although receptive to an English professor at Washington and behavior, and if that behav- is “unable to con- the idea, Boyd and other www.sciencemag.org Jefferson College in Washington, Penn- ior did ensure the survival of tribute in any useful scholars don’t necessarily sylvania, who completed his Ph.D. thesis hunter-gatherers, then per- believe that literature itself under the aegis of David Sloan Wilson. The haps the ability to create and way to the serious (in contrast to simple story- book examines The Iliad and The Odyssey understand literature gave our world of adult telling) is adaptive. Their and employs anthropological work on war- ancestors a survival advan- case is subtle. fare and evolutionary work on polygyny to tage; it is what evolutionary knowledge.” William Flesch, a pro- show, Gottschall argues, that “patterns of scientists call adaptive. It’s an —JOSEPH CARROLL, fessor of comparative litera-

violence in Homeric society are tantaliz- appealing theory—it makes UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, ture at Brandeis University Downloaded from ingly consistent with … acute shortages of literature essential to life—but ST. LOUIS in Waltham, Massachusetts, available young women relative to young it has proved contentious. distances himself from “lit- men.” In this reading, whatever reasons the First, most scholars distinguish between erary Darwinists” like Carroll. But the fi nd- Greek mythic heroes invoked for waging modern, written literature and more funda- ing that self-aggrandizers are villains in war—status, money, honor—they were fun- mental forms, such as oral stories. And sto- Victorian fi ction meshes with Flesch’s own damentally fi ghting for marriages and their ries can indeed be adaptive in human culture work on evolutionary game theory and lit- evolutionary legacy. because they work “like a fl ight simulator” erature, in which rogues are generally pun- Gottschall has also looked outside the for social life, says Brian Boyd, a Nabokov ished. Game theory (the prisoner’s dilemma Western canon, by studying hundreds of scholar at the University of Auckland in New is the classic scenario) explores how people ancient fairy tales worldwide. Although Zealand. His 2009 book, On the Origin of cooperate with or screw each other over in the tales differed in some ways, Gottschall Stories, examines works as diverse as Hor- various situations, and how they respond concluded that the same basic underlying ton Hears a Who! and The Iliad. Boyd argues to later interactions with the same people. characters—handsome young males, pretty that animals often chase, frisk, and play- Flesch focuses on “altruistic punishment”: maidens, and shrewish older women— fi ght, and in a similar way, humans “refi ne situations in which bystanders will punish appear pervasively in all cultures. This coun- their most important cognitive skills through a rogue, even if the rogue never hurt them ters, he says, the popular feminist argument art.” In fiction, “we learn to understand personally. that such stereotypes appear only in the fairy events and shift perspectives at a faster clip “There has to be a reward for altruistic tales of Western societies and merely rein- than usual, to enjoy simulations of a wide punishment,” Flesch says; otherwise human force Western patriarchy. range of social situations, and to generate a cooperation can’t evolve. And he argues Carroll and Gottschall have examined wider range of options.” that the ability to grasp narratives and keep more modern fi ction as well. In a paper they Storytelling could also have an evolu- track of people’s reputations probably helped

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 332 6 MAY 2011 655 Published by AAAS NEWSFOCUS

to distribute punishments and rewards and evolutionary psychology. In fact, they feel therefore proved adaptive. What’s more, their work can bend back and improve evo- if there were conflicting interests among lutionary psychology’s understanding of the people, he says, those who crafted persua- human mind. sive narratives—perhaps by fictionalizing Carroll and Gottschall point out that them—would have gained advantages as textbooks of evolutionary psychology well. But even if certain components of lit- often omit art and other aspects of imagi- erature are adaptive, Flesch says, it doesn’t nation. “Survival, mating, parenting, kin follow that the ability to create or understand networks, and adaptations for social inter- literature itself—the full, fl owery, emotion- actions within groups—[those books] think ally charged production—is adaptive. Flesch that that pretty much covers it” for human instead calls literature a mental spandrel, an nature, Carroll says. “What they’re miss- epiphenomenon of various evolved traits that ing is that art, religion, and ideology regu- happen to work well together. late and direct behavior,” he adds. “Those This resembles the “cheesecake” analogy imaginative features regulate people’s put forth by Pinker in How the Mind Works. birthing systems and kinship networks, or “We need help from Evolution gave us cravings for the concen- whether they practice polygamy or monog- experimentalists, expertise trated calories in fats and sugars, and cheese- amy.” Without those nuances, “you’re just beyond what most of us cake happens to deliver fats and sugars in missing the subject, you’re not talking about concentrated doses. Similarly, we might human beings.” [literary scholars] have.” crave ingredients of literature for sound evo- Blakey Vermeule, a professor of English —JONATHAN GOTTSCHALL, lutionary reasons, and novels might simply at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Cali- WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON COLLEGE mainline those components to our minds. fornia, approaches literature more from a

Pornography is another example. cognitive science than an evolutionary per- on May 5, 2011 Still, arguments like that haven’t dis- spective, but she argues that literature can evolutionary literary critics. A few months suaded some literary Darwinists. Carroll still illuminate how the mind evolved. For ago, Critical Inquiry, a leading journal for still believes literature (or at least its oral instance, we impose narrative patterns on literary theory, published a 33-page article predecessors) had adaptive value. So does the world, which reveals how our minds with the blunt title “Against Literary Dar- Gottschall, although he admits he lacks suf- work. Children and Alzheimer’s victims both winism.” And although Carroll and Gott- fi cient data to prove this: “Right now all I tend to find deep, ultimate causes in ran- schall have a book-length manuscript on can do is tell a just-so story.” dom events: They tend to say their Victorian novels study (titled Graphing But instead of arguing, he things like, “Clouds are really Jane Austen), they’ve had diffi culty fi nding wants to import methods ‘for’ raining.” Stories offer an a publisher. www.sciencemag.org from the sciences to frame entry point for understanding Gottschall says the resistance to Darwin- this hypothesis and test it. how these narrative tenden- ian lit crit among literary scholars reminds “We need help from experi- cies emerge, Vermeule says: him of resistance among religious groups mentalists,” he says, “exper- “Literature is a massive data- to evolution itself. “There’s the fear that if tise beyond what most of us base people can look at and you were able to explain the arts and their [literary scholars] have.” fi gure out what questions to power scientifically, you’d explain them

ask” about human cognition. away,” he says. “Humanities are the last Downloaded from What science can learn Literary criticism might bastion of magic.” Pinker has criticized Dar- even inform biology gener- Yet ideas have emerged recently that might winian lit crit for focusing so ally by showing how the mind help reconcile the divergent worldviews of heavily on evolutionary psy- can open up new avenues scientific and traditional literary studies. chology and neglecting gen- for evolution. For example, Edward O. Wilson and others now argue that eral psychology, linguistics, “ Evolutionary Flesch says studying lit- human beings might have evolved not only and other disciplines. But he psychology has erature might help explain specifi c mental skills—like language—but says the focus makes sense. how altruistic behavior can also a general tendency for mental fl exibil- “Evolutionary psychology concentrated on develop among nonkin. “The ity. Our minds, in other words, evolved to has concentrated on lurid lurid and fraught emotions that good stories are be plastic. Carroll and others have taken up and fraught aspects of human particularly effective at elicit- the idea and argue that literature has adap- nature,” he says, including sex, aspects of human ing, outrage and indignation” tive value precisely because it promotes and beauty, jealousy, dominance, nature … all the over unfair treatment, he says, enhances this plasticity. status—“all the juicy stuff that juicy stuff that are exactly the responses that If that’s true, the notion may someday dominates people’s lives” and lead to altruistic punishment provide a bridge between the two cultures. makes for lively fi ction. dominates people’s and cooperation. “I try to stress that evolution has shaped But evolutionary liter- lives” and makes Still, although literature human minds to be reshapable more than ary scholars have criticized might illustrate the roots of other minds,” Boyd says. “It’s really not so evolutionary psychology as for lively fi ction. cooperation, many literary far from things said for a long time in some well—especially what they —STEVEN PINKER, scholars themselves remain areas of the humanities.” –SAM KEAN call “narrow” or “orthodox” HARVARD UNIVERSITY wary of cooperating with CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): ROSS MANTLE; REBECCA GOLDSTEIN

656 6 MAY 2011 VOL 332 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS