Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature

Rating:
Summary: A Potentially Revolutionary Contribution
Review: The various essays, articles and book reviews comprising Joseph Carroll's Literary Darwinism are rooted in two principles: first, humans share a common nature that can be revealed through the scientific method; second, this universal nature is the product of relentless Darwinian selection over eons. While this is obviously orthodox stuff in the world of behavioral biology, these notions remain quite heretical among the social constructivists who continue to dominate the world of literary studies. From Carroll's simple principles flow corollaries with large implications for literary studies and behavioral biology. The most important corollary for literary scholars is that a large proportion of all that has been said, written, or merely thought in the realm of literary theory and criticism over the last several decades is obviously and often breathtakingly wrong. This is because all of the dominant "poststructuralist" approaches--Lacanian, Foucauldian, Marxist, radical feminist, deconstructionist, and others--are organized around an adamantine core of social constructivist theory that is profoundly at odds both with Darwinian theory and with practical research in what Steven Pinker calls "the new sciences of human nature."

Carroll's argument is really quite simple. All literary criticism and theory is ultimately based on theories of human nature (even the theory that there is no such thing as human nature is a theory of human nature). Literary scholarship constructed on unsound theoretical foundations--on essentially faulty premises about human tendencies and potential--must itself be unsound, no matter how internally self-consistent. The chapters of Literary Darwinism articulate Carroll's vision of a foundation-up reorganization of literary studies along Darwinian lines. Carroll describes a Darwinian Literary Study where judgments about literary plots, characters, and themes are rooted in the bedrock of evolutionary theory, are disciplined by the findings of scientific research, and, when possible, are tested using scientific methods.

Literary scholars and evolutionists who are interested in the concept of consilience will also be interested in Literary Darwinism, which represents one of the most serious and sustained attempts to establish consilience between the humanities and behavioral biology-and to plumb its implications.


Rating:
Summary: A new paradigm
Review: The greatest mind of the 19th Century, perhaps of any century, was that of Charles Darwin. If any mind of the 20th Century might be said to equal Darwin's it would be that of Edward Osborne Wilson. An entomologist, it was Wilson who demonstrated the implications of insect societies for human cultures. His ideas were first promulgated in his 1975 book "Sociobiology" and bore full fruit with "Consilience" in 1998. In "Consilience", Wilson proposed that, as humans were as much a part of Nature as any other creature, our behaviour traits, including the arts and literature, should be viewed in the light of evolution. Wilson demonstrated how the human spirit would be expanded, not diminished, by such a framework. The research ensuing since "Sociobiology" has affirmed Wilson's insight. How would such scenario apply to literature?

Joseph Carroll, a literary critic, incorporates Wilson's insights throughout this collection. Carroll argues that our outlook on the world would be expanded, not confined, by consciously applying Darwin's principles to our literature. Many authors, he notes, have done this through an intuitive sense. Jane Austen, hardly a Darwinian, still presented her characters fully integrated within their natural environment. Austen distinguished between which environments suited a character and which left the individual feeling displaced. For Carroll, this is an encouraging sign. Observant and astute writers can apply what he calls the "Darwinian paradigm", imparting a more natural and plausible foundation to fiction. He wants new writers to understand how to employ those principles from the outset. In this, Carroll is following where Wilson is pointing. The result, Carroll feels, will be an improved basis for literature's production and analysis.

Narrative itself, not only common to the human condition, but apparently necessary to it, reflects our ancestral past. As Wilson pointed out, human beings are a social, not a solitary, animal. Carroll's thesis furthers this idea by noting that narrative accounts are a means of identification within a community. Depicted human interactions must reflect that situation and be based on firm knowledge of Darwinian principles, not on assumptions nor sketchy awareness. He criticises authors who pay lip service to the "Darwinian paradigm" without truly understanding its tenets.

Carroll's thesis is based on what is known as "the Adapted Mind". Our mental states, whether in writing or reading, are derived from the long evolutionary path we've traversed. We aren't separated or "elevated" from it. Much of his attention is given to revealing the false notion of "poststructuralism" - that there are no "truths" [whether absolute or relative] and that authors have no intent in their writings, simply expression formed by local "culture". Darwin's idea, for example, could only have occured in Victorian Britain. Obviously, in such a framework, evolutionary roots have no role in composition, reading or criticism. It seems trite when Carroll writes "the subject matter of literature is human experience", but he feels we need to be reminded of that truth. Writing, he contends, must reflect that truism more forcefully than is often the case. Steps have already been taken, he notes. Such works as "Biopoetics" and "Homo Aestheticus" are indicators of a more realistic approach in fiction.

Carroll's three part collection - a view of the "literary landscape", theory and practical criticism, and assessments of Darwian biographers and critics, is a splendid example of how consilience works. He is opening a new frontier of both writing and reading, and is optimistic for its success. He stresses that a merger of the humanities and sciences, is not only desireable, but necessary. A better knowledge of ourselves must involve a better knowledge of our world. That can only be beneficial to all humanity and its habitat, using literature as a means. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]