Evolution, Literature, and Film: A Reader

by Brian Boyd (Editor), Joseph Carroll (Editor), Jonathan Gottschall (Editor)

Featuring thirty-nine essential essays by pioneering scholars, scientists, and critics, Evolution, Literature, and Film opens with an introduction to the principles of evolution, with essays from Charles Darwin on the logic of natural selection, Richard Dawkins on the genetic revolution of modern evolutionary theory, Edward O. Wilson on the unity of knowledge, Steven Pinker on the transformation of psychology into an explanatory science, and David Sloan Wilson on the integration of evolutionary theory into cultural critique. Later sections include essays on the adaptive function of the arts, discussions of evolutionary literary theory and film theory, interpretive commentaries on specific works of literature and film, and analyses using empirical methods to explore literary problems. Texts under the microscope include folk- and fairy tales; Homer's Iliad ; Shakespeare's plays; works by William Wordsworth, Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë, and Zora Neale Hurston; narratives in sci-fi, comics, and slash fiction; and films from Europe, America, Asia, and Africa. Each essay explains the contribution of evolution to a study of the human mind, human behavior, culture, and art.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film

570 pages, Paperback

First published May 21, 2010

About the author

Brian David Boyd is a University Distinguished Professor at the University of Auckland and a preeminent scholar best known for his definitive work on Vladimir Nabokov. After earning his PhD from the University of Toronto, Boyd was invited by Véra Nabokov to catalogue her husband's archives, leading to his award-winning, two-volume biography, The Russian Years and The American Years. His scholarship on Nabokov remains prolific, encompassing numerous edited volumes, verse translations, and the digital project AdaOnline. Beyond his expertise in Russian literature, Boyd is a pioneer in the field of "biopoetics," exploring the intersections of literature, evolution, and cognition. His landmark book, On the Origin of Stories, argues that storytelling is a biological adaptation rooted in play, applying evolutionary criticism to works ranging from Homer to Dr. Seuss. A versatile intellectual, he has also tackled the biography of philosopher Karl Popper and co-curated major exhibitions on the origins of art. In 2020, his contributions to the humanities were recognized with the Rutherford Medal, the Royal Society Te Apārangi’s highest honor.

Reviews

[Landis Duffett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume goes beyond merely giving a representative sampling of various specialized foci within the field of evolutionary literary studies. Indeed, it could be said that the incredibly competent job of editing and organizing of the essays almost turns this volume into an indispensable foundation in the theoretical groundings and the critical practice of this school. The result is both anthology and textbook. The explication of theoretical foundations is fascinating and rigorous. Evolutionary psychology is presented in all its intriguing richness. After reading just the first third or so of this volume, one will have a clear idea of how evolutionary psychology and sociobiology have waged a credible contestation of hegemonic literary critical practice (i.e. Theory) of the past 30 or 40 years as well as of how evolutionary psychology and sociobiology provide a new paradigm for literary critical practice which promises to be more rigorous and fruitful and to provide both more questions and answers (thus passing a sort of Kuhnian litmus test for paradigm replacement) than now stale Theory. And yet...one reads the theoretical set-up in the first two-thirds of the text, eagerly awaiting the practical application, only to be largely disappointed in the failure of the method to live up to its promise and potential. Many of the scholars make amateurish mistakes resulting from failure to make elementary distinctions about what exactly their critical object is. Amidst this unclarity, many of the essayists commit precisely the same sins as the poststructuralists they so often criticize. Like Lacan reading Poe or Sophocles, many of them seem to be reading literature merely as a pedagogical storehouse of illustrations of evolutionary theory, flattening literature into a repertoire of examples suited it seems for nothing beyond confirming the truth of evolution (like Nordlund's “Jealousy in Othello”). Worse still, other critics seem to be arguing that certain authors—consciously or unconsciously: it's rarely made clear—have given us Darwin's insights in literary form, reading Wordsworth's Prelude, for example, as a proxy refutation of Freudian views of motherhood and a defense of Darwin avant la lettre. Sadly, it is the theoretical promise rather than the critical follow-through that constitutes this volume's greatest strength and provides its few rare gems in essays like Geoffrey Miller's “Arts of Seduction,” which gives a theory for the origins of arts (this it seems is the forte of Darwinian literary studies rather than interpretation, where its scientific reasoning becomes a detriment). There are exceptions like Daniel Nettle's brilliant evolutionary model for analyzing comedy and tragedy, which succeeds precisely because it has a clear purpose in terms of what evolutionary criticism should do and what its relationship to its object should be, namely, one that motivates a dynamic model through which the critic increases rather than arrests his/her own interpretive creativity. But these gems are few and far between. In the end, it is no great wonder why less than half of the book is taken up by actual applications of the theory to literature and film. I would recommend the book as an introduction to a field that (one will be given to hope after reading this) will eventually be able to live up to its promise for providing a richer and more insightful literary critical practice.

[Asta Nyyssönen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent and comprehensive introduction to the field.