Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology

Edited by R.I.M. Dunbar

School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool and Louise Barrett Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2co7 CHAPTER 44 Evolutionary approache! to literature and drama Joseph Carroll

Adaptationist literary scholars idenl 44.1. The philosophical tion as a crucial link in a causal chain orientation of adaptatlonlst duces literary artefacts. They accept the literary study that over evolutionary time the hun has evolved in an adaptive re1ationshi Adaptationist literary study has emerged as a environment, and they affirm that the distinct movement only in the past 15 years. mind' has a definite structure-a Contributors include both literary scholars who configured set of species-typical be have assimilated the ideas ofevolutionary psychol­ dispositions. The common designatio ogy and also evolutionary social scientists who species-typical configuration-both i have taken literary works as a subject of study. tradition and in evolutionary psych, Contributors from both disciplinary fields have 'human nature'. Like most traditiom appeared together in symposia, conference theorists, adaptationist literary scholars ; panels, special issues of journals, and edited literary works are produced and con1 books, and they have also entered together into fulfil the needs of human nature, that tl collaborative research projects. This blurring human nature, and that they are constJ and crossing of disciplinary boundaries points their formal organization, by the speci, to the largest philosophical principle that distin­ dynamics of human social interaction. guishes Darwinian literary study-the idea of In the following three sections I shall 'consilience'. Reintroduced into philosophical the historical context of adaptationis parlance by Edward O. Wilson (1998), the term study, survey the work that has alre, 'consilience' denotes that nature forms a unified published in adaptationist literary stu! field of determinate causal relations and that all then consider some of the direction! fields of knowledge are thus integrally connected. research might take. Within the consilient world view, physics con­ strains chemistry; chemistry constrains biology; 44.2. The historical conte biology constrains psychology, anthropology, and of adaptation1st literary s1 the other human sciences, and all these sciences constrain the study ofhuman cultural production, Literature did not become the subject 01 including literature, drama, and the other arts. demic discipline until the last two decad 638 . CHAPTER 44 Evolutionary approaches of literature and drama Contributions to adaptationist literary study

nineteenth century, and until the 1940s, it con­ and scientific. In the past decade, 'deep ecology' alignment with important aspects of standard McFadden, in press; McEwan, 2005). sisted in two main forms: (i) philological and has added one more item to this list of suspect social science, and in the 1990s postmodernism programmatic expositions have focused, historical scholarship; and (ii) moralized aes­ epithets, the anthropocentric emphasis on the began to seep over into anthropology. Much 'consilient' or comprehensively interdiscif thetic commentary of a very general, impres­ specifically 'human' (see Carroll, 2004, Part 1, standard social science remains distinct from nature of adaptationist literary study (C sionistic character (see Graff, 1987; Abrams, Chapter 8). Since the middle of the 1980s, the postmodemism in that standard social scien­ 2004, Part 1, Chapter 7; Gottschall, 2003c; 1997). In the 1930s, a new methodology arose, a bulk of postmodern criticism has had a political tists, though they reject the idea of human 1999a,b; Nordlund, 2002). Other expol form of 'close reading' or formal analysis of slant, and much of it has been predominantly nature and deny that biology influences culture, have used evolutionary psychology as a f theme, tone, and style. 'The New Criticism', as political. Feminism emerged in the 1970s, none the less continue to regard scientific work within which to criticize the post this school is still called, dominated academic independently of postmodernism, as a highly methodology as a medium of objective knowl­ turalist conceptions that currently don literary study in England and America until politicized literary movement driven by the edge about a real world that exists independ­ academic literary study (Carroll, 1995, the late 1970s. By focusing on formal analysis, transformation of women's social roles and by ently of cultural and linguistic constructs. Part 1, Chapters 2 and 3, and in press d; ~ the school provided a methodology admirably the changing demographics of the university Adaptationist literary theorists have rejected 1996; D. S. Wilson, 2005). Within the Ii suited to classroom study and to the mass pro­ itself. By the middle of the 1980s, literary femi­ both the irrationalism of postmodernism and poststructuralist paradigm, psychology : duction of scholarly publication in the burgeoning nism had assimilated itself to the larger post­ the blank-slate model of human, behaviour that predominantly Freudian, and some adapta1 industry of higher education. modern creed, and almost all literary feminism informs standard social science. They affirm the scholars have used evolutionary psychol Between the middle of the 1970s and the mid­ now adopts one or another of the postmodern ideas of 'truth' and 'reality', and they think that and especially findings on incest avoida dle of the 1980s, a revolution took place in literary idioms as the medium for its preoccupation in studying the productS of the human imagina­ to criticize Freudian literary theory (5 studies. 'Poststructuralism' or 'postmodemism', with the concerns of women. In the postmodern tion, truth and reality can be most adequately 1996; Easterlin, 2000; Scalise Sugiyama, ; spearheaded by the 'deconstructive' philosophy political arena, textualism and indeterminacy served by an adaptationist understanding of Evans, 2005). of Jacques Derrida, swept across the landscape serve as means for deprecating the legitimacy of human nature. Over the past two decades or so, in ro of literature departments and infiltrated all the dominant social, psychological, or sexual norms. the same period that adaptationist literary departments of the humanities. The fundamen­ Postmodern science theory treats of science has been developing, literary study ha: tal tenets of poststructuralism are 'textualism' itself as merely a political and cultural construct 44.3. Contributions to extended itself into the bordering an and 'indeterminacy'. Textualism is the belief that that reflects and supports these dominant adaptation1st literary study cognitive science and ecology. '()ognitive rho language or 'discourse' is the elemental stuff norms (Gross and Levitt, 1994; Sokal, 1996; and 'ecocriticism' share little in the way ofCOJ of existence, that it constitutes or at least Gross et al., 1997; Koertge, 1998; Sokal and Literary study inspired by adaptationist social or concerns with one another, but both 0' fundamentally determines all forms of reality. Bricmont, 1998; Parsons, 2003). science can be grouped into six large, partially in some measure, at different points, with Indeterminacy is the belief that all meaning Until the advent of postrnodernism, academic overlapping categories: (i) general program­ tationist literary study. contradicts itselfand that no determinate mean­ literary study and standard social science ran on matic expositions, manifestos and prolegomena; In its broadest reaches, cognitive rhetori, ing is possible. If all meaning is indeterminate, separate but parallel tracks. Darwinian influences (ii) commentaries on the relation ofadaptation­ cerns itself with brain functions and wi! all texts are open to perpetual reinterpretation. on anthropology, psychology and sociology died ist literary study to the bordering fields of eco­ emotions involved in literary productio In postrnodern essays, this particular inference, out in the first two decades of the twentieth logical literary criticism and cognitive rhetoric; response, but as a_distinct school of literar though it sounds fairly determinate, has itself century and were replaced by the doctrines of (iii) discussions of the adaptive function ofliter­ ory it affiliates itself primarily with the linl been explicitly reiterated with the monotonous cultural autonomy and behaviourist conditioning ature; (iv) essays on topics of literary theory theories of Mark Johnson and George L regularity of a monastic liturgy. Given that liter­ (see Brown, 1991, pp. 1-38; Buss, 1999, Part 1; (genre, evaluation, and point of view): (v) cri­ Johnson and Lakoff argue that language is ary scholars deal with a finite body of texts, the Degler, 1991; Fox, 1989, Chapters 3 and 4; tiques of specific literary works: and (vi) studies on metaphor and that metaphors often , motivating force that attaches to this industrial Freeman, 1992, 1999, pp. 17-27; Tooby and that not only assimilate concepts from the social from 'the body', but unlike adaptationist e academic rationale can hardly be overestimated. Cosmides, 1992, p. 28). From the 1940s to the sciences but also incorporate empirical method­ cognitive rhetoricians do not attempt to id New Criticism was fundamentally conserva­ middle of the 1970s, the New Critical orthodoxy ology in the study of literature. a species-typical structure of behav tive in orientation. Its practitioners were often held that literary meaning is itself autonomous Programmatic expositions rehearse the basic dispositions. Cognitive rhetoricians are ~ politically or ideologically conservative, and it and fully intelligible without reference to any logic of an adaptationist understanding of human ally hostile to evolutionary psychology shared with Victorian humanism a reverential contextual influence. The social scientists wished nature, affirm that literary production falls some adaptationist critics have criticized ( attitude towards the canonical texts of Western to protect culture from any suspicion ofbiological within the scope of that logic, and suggest ways tive rhetoric for the limitations in its con" culture-and by extension, towards Western influence, and the literary critics wished to in which literary scholars can use evolutionary scope (Carroll, 2004, Part 1, Chapter 5, pp. : culture itself. The ideological impulses that protect literature from any suspicion not only of psychology as a theoretical foundation for literary Part 2, Chapter 1, pp. 104-106; Carroll, animated the postmodern revolution were, in biological influence but also of social influence. study (Easterlin, 1993, 1999b, 2001b; Storey, 1993, p. 938; Gottschall, 2004). Other adaptat contrast, radical and subversive. Under the aegis Postmodernism expanded the notion of textual 1996; Barrow, 1995: Carroll, 1995,2004, Part 2, critics have sought to identify common gl of Michel Foucault, the postmodernists adopted autonomy to include not just the isolated literary Chapters 1 and 6; Carroll, 2005; Boyd, 1998, between cognitive rhetoric and adaptat a stance of suspicion and hostility to all estab­ text but the whole textual universe--the world 2005a:Evans, 1998: ()ooke, 1999b; Nieves, 2001; criticism (Boyd, 1999; Easterlin, 2002). lished forms of 'power': bourgeois, patriarchal, constituted by 'discourse'. The idea of cultural Barash and Barash, 2002, 2005; Fromm 2003a,b; Ecocriticism is not so much a distinct be heterosexist, Western, colonial, white, rational, autonomy brought the postmodernists into Gottschall and WIlson, 2005; HeadIarn Wells and theory or method as, rather, a subject rn 640 . CHAPTER 44 Evolutionary approaches of literature and drama Contributions to adaptationist literary stu

Ecocritics have for the most part been animated attention on adaptively salient concerns, and mouth display'. Nettle associates tragedy with the sheer number of universal them by environmentalist concerns and sympathies. Dissanayake, Boyd, and Dunbar emphasize the conflicts over status, and he associates comedy given work. Cooke (1999b, p. 55) assc As specifically literary critics, they have concen­ utility of literature and the other arts in creating with mate selection. Carroll (2004, pp. 127, 158) erary merit with the presence of confli trated heavily on a distinct tradition of 'nature' and reinforcing social bonds (Boyd, 2005b; correlates tragedy, comedy, and satire with the biologically based dispositions. EasterlJ writing, most often American writing. In their Cooke, 1999a; Dissanayake, 1995a,b, 2000, 2001; 'basic emotions' of Ekman 2003, who correlates 2005) counters the emphasis on unb theoretical orientation, ecocritics range from Dunbar, 2004, 2005). Dissanayake, Cooke, and tragedy with sadness, fear, and anger, comedy with drawing attention to the way element postmodernism to a strongly naturalistic and Boyd emphasize the adaptively relevant content joy and surprise, and satire with anger, disgust, ary tradition and other culturally COl Darwinian outlook. Two prominent ecocritics, of art. Dunbar concentrates attention on theory and contempt. Cooke (2002) has examined a spe­ factors enter into judgements of liter< Glen Love and Harold Fromm, have sought to of mind or perspective-taking as central mecha­ cific form of satire, that of the dystopian politi­ Carroll (2004, p. 145) argues that jue assimilate the topics and concerns of ecology to nisms of human social interaction. E. O. Wilson, cal novel, and he argues that the satire depends of value typically depend on a combi an adaptationist framework (Fromm, 1996, Carroll, and Tooby and Cosmides argue that the crucially on contrasting the social conditions of factors: elemental motives linked w 1998'J2001; Love 1999a,b, 2003). Carroll and arts serve a unique adaptive function in that a totalitarian state with the evolved needs of a emotions, coherent thematic structure~ Easterlin criticize ecocriticism from an adapta­ they provide an emotionally saturated cognitive universal human nature. Cooke (1994, 1996) felicity, and the quality of mind and he tionist perspective and argue that a concept of order that mediates between innate dispositions has also examined a generic category, science writer. He also invokes a principle of' human nature must take the central place in any and the complexities of contingent circumstances fiction, that is based more on subject matter in the conception of a subject and in tt theory about the relations of human beings to (Carroll, 2004, Part 1, Chapters 6 and 7; Part 2, than on emotional quality, and he locates the organization of a literary work (Cam their physical environment (Carroll, 2004, Part 1, Chapter 6, and in press a and c; Tooby and central themes of science fiction in the core Part 2, Chapter 5). Chapter 8; Part 2, Chapter 4; Easterlin, 2004). Cosmides, 2001; E. O. Wilson, 1998, pp. 225-26). issues of survival and reproductive success. Point of view is a standard technica Arguments about the adaptive function of Tooby and Cosmides converge with Pinker and Evolutionary psychologists have used mate literary narrative and involves distinct literature fall into three main groups: (i) that Scalise Sugiyama in arguing that in listening selection theory to explain'the generic features those between 'first-person narrator', 'thir literature and the other arts are not adaptive but to stories people rehearse adaptively relevant of pornography and romance fiction, paired off, omniscient narrator', 'third-person are, rather, non-adaptive side-effects of cogni­ scenarios. Carroll acknowledges this practical respectively, as male and female forms of fantasy narrator~ and so on. In its broader signi tive capacities that have developed for adaptive function but also stipulates that the larger adap­ (Ellis and Symons, 1990; Whissel, 1996; Salmon the concept of 'point of view' opens reasons; (ii) that literature and the other arts are tive function is not merely practical. Literature and Symons, 2001; Salmon, 2005). The largest anthropological and psychological ti indirectly adaptive in that they can be made to and its oral antecedents create models or images formal distinctions are those between drama, literature as a social and communica contribute to one or another adaptively useful of people acting in the world; those models are narrative fiction, and poetic verse. Turner (1992, Dunbar, Barrett and Lycett argue that th activity; and (iii) that literature and the other imbued with emotion and moral value; and they pp. 61-108) has examined the biological basis of tion of specifically human sociality is ( arts fulfil adaptive functions that are peculiar thus provide general psychological maps or guides poetic meter; he argues for a biologically based dependent both on language and on th to themselves and that could be fulfilled by through which people assess motives and behav­ three-second metric. Scalise Sugiyama (1996, ity for empathy or 'theory of mind', th, no other means. Pinker (1997, 2002) argues that iour and evaluate alternatives. In comparison 2001b, 2005) and Steen (2005) both identify capacity to envision the world from s the arts, like pornography and rich foods, are with that of other animals, even other primates, the core elements of narrative as those of goal­ else's point olview-to intuit another means for exploiting psychological mechanisms the human cognitive universe is exceptionally oriented agents coping with the adaptive prob­ perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs (Barre that evolved for other purposes. He also argues complex, and so far as we know humans are lems of resources and social life. Nettle (2oo5b) 2002, Chapters 11, 12 and 13; Dunba that literature can be adaptively useful in pre­ unique in creating an imaginative universe and creates a typology of drama through the intersec­ 2005; Dunbar et al., 2005, Chapters 8,9 ; senting models of situations in which its readers in regulating their behaviour in relation to the tion of two central conflicts (status and mating) Scalise Sugiyama (1996) examines the' might at some point find themselves. Scalise imaginative models they construct. and two possible outcomes (negative and narratives are shaped to manipulate au Sugiyama (2001a) argues that literature can Genre is a composite concept in literary theory, positive). Three studies have examined the cor­ in the interest of the narrator. Carroll convey adaptively useful information about the consisting of various proportions of three chief relation between the sizes of human social that literary meaning emerges thrOl: environment-specific, concrete information elements: emotional quality, subject matter, and groups and the formal organization of dramas negotiation among three distinct sets of] about material resources and physical conditions. formal organization. The primary emotional (Stiller et al., 2004; Matthews and Barrett, 2005; view: that of the author, of the charact, Coe (2003) argues that in ancestral environments component is a polarity between sadness or Stiller and Hudson, 2005). These studies are of the audience. Since point of view i visual art conveyed information about kin grief (tragedy) and joy or mirth (comedy). This oriented to a model for the evolution of the individual identity, Carroll argues that relations. Miller (1999, 2000), Power (1999) and polarity is compounded by the kind of mirth human brain that is driven by social group size, theory needs to make use of an emf Voland (2003) argue that literature and the that involves ridicule or mockery and that pro­ and they use anthropological data on social derived set of categories, including tl other arts, like all other forms of mental activity, duces satire. Storey (1996) and Nettle (2005a,b) group size to analyse the organization of social personality theory, for analysing ind subserve the purposes of sexual display. From have explored the polarity of tragedy and comedy groups in the populations of specific plays and differences (Carroll, 2004, Part 2, Cha: this perspective, art has no intrinsic adaptive in adaptationist terms, and Storey and Boyd have genres. and 6; 2005, and in press d). functions but is indirectly adaptive in that, like explored the theory of humour (Boyd, in press b; Adaptationist discussions of literary value, like A large portion of the work done in a the peacock's tail, it contributes to processes of Storey, 2001, 2003). Storey locates the source of adaptationist critiques of literary depictions, have tionist literary study has consisted in in' sexual selection. Dissanayake, Cooke, and Boyd tragedy in struggles over power, and he locates a tended to focus on the issue of human universals. tive commentary on specific literary text: argue that art evolved as a means of focusing primate source for comedy in 'the relaxed open Turner (1992, p. 26) identifies literary merit with characteristically, these commentaries i, 642 . CHAPTER 44 Evolutionary approaches of literature and drama Contributions to adaptationist literary study

behaviours in the texts that correspond (or fail conditions of Palaeolithic life as a touchstone for conclusions about the relations between human assessing the way the narrative is shaped I to correspond) to species-typical patterns of assessing the imaginative quality ofthe novels. universals and culturally specific values and underlying, not fully conscious. force behaviour. Topics have included all the standard Epics have received a good deal of attention. beliefs. evolved sexual psychology. Storey (1996) an categories in which evolutionary psychologists Nesse (1995) examines three poetic versions of Lyric poetry has received some attention from a novel by Iris Murdoch and argues tend to divide human life-history effort: survival, the Guinevere myth, assessing differences in the adaptationist critics. Jobling (2002) discusses Murdoch's conscious Freudian psycholc resource acquisition, mate selection, parenting, sexual ethos of different cultural moments. Byron as a figure who exemplifies the 'cad' tacitly subverted by her intuitive apprehe childhood development, kin relations, and social Thiessen and Umezawa (1998) give a sociobio­ mating strategy. (This study was extended as an of evolved sexual psychology. Perchan (: life, including status seeking, coalition building, logical reading of a medieval Japanese novel and empirical study by Kruger et al., 2003.) Easterlin examines a novel by Graham Greene in . cheater detection, and in-groups and out-groups. see in it an exemplification of universal human (2000) examines the pervading theme of mother­ to assess the way in which evolved s The most sophisticated of these interpretive mating dispositions. Fox (1995, 2005) has used infant relations in the poetry of Wordsworth. psychology shapes interpersonal relatiol commentaries have analysed the interplay evolutionary findings on mate selection to correlates Wordsworth's insights with those of exotic conditions. Carroll and Gott! between elemental dispositions and particular examine male mating conflict in a number of modern attachment theory. and sets both in (in press) have used an evolutionary Ul social and cultural ecologies, and they have also epics. Gottschall (2001, 2003a) examines the contrast with an extensive body of Freudian standing of motives, mate selection, and pel incorporated the concepts of traditional literary Homeric poems within their anthropological feminist criticism. Evans (in press) has examined ality to produce a content analysis ofthe mo analysis: the analysis ofstyle and tone, symbolism, context, using sociobiology as a conceptual poems about sports in the light of evolutionary mate preferences, and personality character figures of speech, point of view, narrative and frame for understanding the sexual ecology of psychology. of 170 characters in 44 British novels 01 dramatic structure, the interplay with audience the poems. Barash and Barash (2002, 2005) A number of adaptationist critics have given nineteenth century. expectations, and the problems of literary value. comment on Virgil's Aeneid in the light of interpretive accounts of narrative fiction of the All the theoretical and critical works I The curricula of departments of literature are evolved sexual psychology. [Barash and Barash nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Cooke cited make use of information derived j commonly organized by period and genre, and (2005) give brief commentaries on adaptationist (1999c, 2002) has studied Slavic subjects, but evolutionary psychology-information th those categories will serve here as a framework themes in dozens of works in world literature most contributors have studied topics in British itself derived at least in part from empi for outlining adaptationist contributions to inter­ from the time ofHomer to the twentieth century.] and American fiction. Boyd and Carroll have research. Another distinct body of ~ pretive criticism. Shakespeare has been a frequent subject of interpreted works of Jane Austen (Boyd, 1998; not only makes use of empirically derived in One distinct generic group consists in studies adaptationist criticism. Stiller, Hudson, Nettle, Carroll, 2004, Part 2, Chapters 3 and 6), and mation but conducts empirical research of folk tales, fairy tales, fantasies, and works of and Dunbar have taken Shakespeare as a focal Carroll has also critiqued works by Dickens, literature. Miall and Dissanayake (2003) perf science fiction. Cooke (1995) and Easterlin point for analysing the correlation between Charlotte Bronte, Cather, Bennett, Hardy, Wilde, metric, phonetic, and foregrounding analyst (2001a) have examined specific fairy tales. Jobling human social-group size and the organization and others (2004, Part 1, Chapters 6 and 8, Part 'motherese' and situate their analysis withir (2001b) gives a generalized account of ogre of characters within drama (Stiller et a!., 2004; 2, Chapters 1 and 3; in press b). Carroll (2004, adaptationist theory ofmother-infant interact stories. (Gottschall has compared large numbers Stiller and Hudson, 2005). (See the comments Part 2, Chapter 3) uses five novels to exemplify Scalise Sugiyama (2001a) analyses the incid( of fairy tales from different cultures; these studies above on the form of drama.) Nettle's (2005a) different kinds of relations among human of adaptively relevant information about resou will be cited below under the. category of empir­ analysis of tragedy and comedy illustrates its universals. culturally specific contexts, and indi­ in the narratives of native peoples. D. S. Wi] ical literary analysis.) In all of these studies, theory with commentary on Richard III and vidual identities in authors, and. he also invokes et al. (1998) conducted an experiment to as emphasis is given to the way in which the stories Twelfth Night. Boyd (in press a) uses kin human universals as a touchstone for canonical the relation of Machiavellianism to the fictic embody universal themes grounded in evolved selection as a chief category for the analysis of status. Jobling (2001a) and Kruger et al. (2003) stories produced by experimental subje psychology. Other critics have examined works dramatic conflict in Titus Andranicus. Nordlund have studied the novels of Sir Walter Scott from Kruger et al. (2003) use literary texts to as; in which symbols of human universals are (2005) and Headlam Wells (in press) integrate a specifically adaptationist perspective. Jobling differences in short and long-term mat lodged within highly specific cultural or ecolog­ concepts of an evolved human nature with uses sociobiological mating and ethical theory strategies in respondents. The studies ical conditions. Boyd (2001) gives an extensive knowledge of Shakespeare's specific historical to explain the pattern ofdark and light heroes in pornography and romance fiction, cited ab, critique of a fantasy tale by Dr Seuss and takes it environment. Nordlund argues that the romantic Scott's novels, and Kruger et al. use characters in the paragraph on genre, all make use ofqu; as a critique of American xenophobia. Cooke love is grounded in evolved psychology, and he from Scott and Byron to test hypotheses about titative analysis and work with predicti( has delved into futuristic science fiction (1987, takes romantic love as a basis of comparison differences in cadJdad mating strategies. Easterlin about sex differences in mating psycholc 2002) and has also given a book-length critique between Trailus and Cressida and All's Well That (2005) gives an account of meta-fictional (Ellis and Symons, 1990; Whissel, 1996; Salm of a single literary work, Zamyatin's dystopian Ends Well. Headlam Wells concentrates on reworkings of Jane Eyre and David Copperfield, and Symons, 2001; Salmon, 2005). The stud futuristic fantasy We (Cooke, 2002). He locates the humanist moral vision in Twelfth Night, The examining the way universals are altered by the that examine the relation between social gro this novel within the larger contexts of dystopian Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, The self-reflexive contexts of a literary tradition. size and dramatic structure, also cited above fiction and Soviet literature and takes evolution­ Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar and Love (2003) comments on novels by Howells, the paragraph on genre, begin with an empiri, ary psychology as an implicit satiric frame for King Lear. Boyd (1999, 2005a) and Nettle Cather, and Hemingway, locating all these com­ analysis of correlations between social gro1 Soviet totalitarianism. Carroll critiques three (2005b) take Hamlet as the basis for exploring mentaries in relation to ecological constraints size and the evolution of the brain, and th works of paleo-fiction (2004, Part 2, Chapter 5) the psychological foundations of drama. Scalise within the physical environment. Saunders bring these findings to bear on analyses of grol in which Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons Sugiyama (2003) examines a native African (2005, and in press) comments on a novel by sizes in dramatic representations (Stiller et a encounter one another, and he uses the specific people's response to Hamlet and draws important Wharton and a story by Anderson, in both cases 2004; Matthews and Barrett, 2005; Stiller ar 644 . CHAPTER 44 Evolutionary approaches of literature and drama Reference~

Hudson, 2005). Gottschall and his colleagues sociality, and in personality. Literary value, like quantitative methods of analysis and by using have conducted a series of studies analysing the all value, is subjective, but subjective mental Boyd, B. (2005a) Literature and evolution: a bio-c data to test specific hypotheses, literary scholars approach. Philosophy and Literature, 29: 1-23. correlation of species-typical behaviours with events are themselves susceptible to empirical can produce knowledge that is both falsifiable Boyd, B. (2005b) Evolutionary theories of art. representations of behaviour in large numbers research, and the same kinds of research that and genuinely progressive. They can link their In J. Gottschall and D. S. Wilson (eds) Literatur, of folk tales, fairy tales, and literary works illuminate an understanding of emotion, point own work ever more closely with the continu­ and the human animal, pp. 147-176. Northwest University Press, Evanston, IL. (Gottschall, 2003b, 2005; Carroll and Gottschall, of view, and social dynamics will further illumi­ ously developing knowledge in the empirical in press; Gottschall et al., 2004, 2005, in press nate our understanding of literary values. Boyd, B. (in press a) Kind and unkindness: Aaron, sciences, and they can produce new knowledge. Titus Andronicus. In B. Boyd (ed.) Words that C. a and b). The interpretive critique of individual literary A truly adequate form of adaptationist liter­ Essays on Early Modern Authorship in Honor of works, and of works grouped by author, genre ary study would combine at least four areas of MacDonald P. Jackson. University of Delaware and period, provide a main field for further expertise: (i) a thorough knowledge of evolu­ Press. Newark, NJ. 44.4. Directions for development in adaptationist literary study. tionary psychology-including a knowledge of Boyd, B. (in press b) Laughter and literature: a pia; of humor. Philosophy and Literature. further research Current studies have made only an occasional its current limitations and its chief topics of lodgement on the coast of a continent in which Carroll. J. (1995) Evolution and Literary Theory. controversy; (ii) a deep and broad humanistic University of Missouri Press, Columbia. Most of the research areas outlined above have the interior remains largely unexplored. Vast training, with specialized knowledge of one or Carroll, J. (2004) Literary Darwinism: Evolution, HI been explored in only a preliminary fashion. tracts ofworld literature, and whole phases even more historical periods, including the demo­ Nature, and Literature. Routledge, New York. Up to the present time, the only area that has of English and American literature, remain virgin graphics, economics, politics, cultural forms, Carroll, r. (2005) Literature and evolutionary psych In D. Buss (ed.) The Handbook ofEvolutionary been fully developed is that of programmatic forest. The medieval period has barely been and literary traditions of those periods; expositions. As both evolutionary psychology touched, and virtually nothing has been written Psychology, pp. 931-952. Wiley, Hoboken, Nr. (iii) expertise in the methods of'close reading'­ Carroll, J. (in press a) The adaptive function of liter and adaptationist literary study develop further, about seventeenth- and eighteenth-century a knowledge of the inner workings of tone, In C. Martindale, P. Locher and V. Petrov (eds) and as the institutional context of literary study literature. Scarcely more has been written about imagery, style, figures of speech, and the formal Evolutionary and Neurocognitive Approaches to changes, it will be necessary periodically to modern literature. Most poetry remains to be organization of narrative, drama, and verse; and Creativity and the Arl:!. Baywood, Amityville, NY. reassess the whole field. For the time being, the explored. Apart from the works of Shakespeare, (iv) a practical acquaintance with empirical Carroll, J. (in press b) Aestheticism, homoeroticism and Christian guilt in The Picture ofDorian Gray most productive efforts could probably be most drama has not yet been brought under methodology and a readiness to incorporate devoted to the other areas under review. scrutiny. a Darwinian critique. Philosophy and Literature. empirical analysis into literary research. Literary Carroll, J. (in press c) The human revolution and th Theories about the adaptive function of The social sciences are in general not strongly scholars will need both to develop new forms of adaptive function of literature. Philosophy and literature and the other arts remain in a highly oriented to the study of cultural history. expertise and also to imitate the sciences in the Literature. speculative state. The background knowledge Evolutionary psychology grounds itself in deep practice of working collaboratively, in research Carroll, J. (in press d) Literature and evolution. for this area-knowledge about the last few history-in evolutionary history-and it is teams, so as to pool different forms of expertise. In R. Headlam Wells and J. McFadden (eds) hundred thousand years of human evolution, preoccupied with the human universals that Human Nature: Fact andfiction. Continuum, The demands are heavy, but the rewards great. London. the development of language, the evolution of emerge from that history, but it has made only We have opportunities of discovery that are, Carroll, J. and Gottschall. J. (in press) Human natur, social life, and the emergence of symbolic rudimentary progress in understanding how in the humanities, unprecedented. and agonistic structure in canonical British novel culture within the past 100 000 years or so-is universal human dispositions vary in the varying of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: a itself still speculative and controversial (see cultural ecologies of the past 10 000 years-the content analysis. In U. Klein, K. Mellmann and Carroll, in press c). Further understanding of period for the emergence of agriculture, mass References S. Metzger (eds) Anthropologie und SOzialgeschich. this issue will depend in part on developments societies, and literacy. One of the chief chal­ der Literatur Heuristiken der Literaturwissenschaft Abrams, M. H. (1997) The transformation ofEnglish Mentis, Paderborn, Germany. in the primary field of anthropological research lenges to adaptationist scholars, and one of the studies: 1930-1995. 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(1998) Consilience: The Unity ofKnowledge. Biogenetic Foundations ofLiterary Representation. congratulated him on the "admirable" nature of music is incapable of functioning in tl Alfred A. Knopf, New York Northwestern University Press~ Evanston, IL. his "remarks on the so-called Development that "articulate speech" may do, its po Theory': admitting that he himself was presently representation being vague, it has great engaged on "an abstract of a larger work on the to arouse in us "various emotions". change of species", though treating the subject affective powers arise through its assc "simply as a naturalist & not from a general point with processes ofsexual selection, being ell ofview; otherwise, in my opinion, your argument "during the season of courtship, when, could not have been improved on & might have of all kinds are excited not only by 10 been quoted by me with great advantage': Darwin by the strong passions of jealousy, rival continued, declaring that "Your article on Music triumph". Indeed, impassioned speech ( has also interested me much, for I had often profoundly musical characteristics; as ] thought on the subject & had come to nearly the puts it, the powers of music are reflecte< same conclusion with you, though unable to "cadences of oratory". Music constitutes support the notion in any detail" (Darwin, 1858). for the emergence of language, being a c By the time Darwin came to set out his thoughts widely shared with other animals and cons on music in The Descent ofMan and Selection in a medium ideally suited for the commun Relation to Sex of 1871 (Darwin, 2004), however, of affect rather than representation. I something of a divergence ofview had emerged, thus viewed music as a precursor of lar perhaps partly accelerated by Darwin's increasing its ultimate roots lying in its adaptive v exasperation with the extent to which his concept sexual selection. of evolution as founded in natural selection had Darwin contrasted his views with th' been confounded in the public mind with the tion of Spencer that he had praised ill