Overview

The inaugural book in ASP's new Evolution, Cognition, and the Arts series, this collection of essays examines selected works in the American literary tradition from an evolutionary perspective. Using an interdisciplinary framework to pose new questions about long admired, much discussed texts, the collection as a whole provides an introduction to Darwinian literary critical methodology. Individual essays feature a variety of figures-Benjamin Franklin to Billy Collins-targeting fitness-related issues ranging from sexual strategies and parental investment to cheating and deception. Attention is paid to the physical and social environments in which fictional characters are placed, including the influence of culturalhistorical conditions on resource acquisition, status-building, competition, and reciprocity. Discussion throughout the volume makes connections to existing secondary comment, suggesting how Darwinian scrutiny can generate unexpected insights into long familiar works.

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9781618117663

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Reviews

Judith Saunders's book shows just how good evolutionary literary criticism can be. She convincingly demonstrates that an evolutionary critic can generate new insights about literary works to which many generations of scholars have already devoted critical attention. Moreover, she unites a fine literary sensibility with special gifts for writing forceful and evocative prose. Her book belongs to that very small set of interpretive critical works that give specifically literary pleasure in their own right. - Joseph Carroll, Curators' Professor of English, University of Missouri-St. Louis, editor in chief of Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture

Author Information

Judith P. Saunders is Professor of English at Marist College in New York State. She is the author of The Poetry of Charles Tomlinson: Border LinesandReading Edith Wharton through a Darwinian Lens: Evolutionary Biological Issues in Her Fiction.

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