Abstract
Amazon (2013):
Why have we evolved to delight in telling stories and listening to them? Can literary
meaning be discovered through data? What is more important to the identity of a literary
character: gender or moral disposition? This boldly original study answers such questions
and thus changes the debate about literary Darwinism. Constructing an evolutionary
model of human nature and adopting scientific methods of research, this book explains
the organization of characters in nineteenth-century British novels, yields rich insights
into specific literary works, and demonstrates that evolutionary thinking can solve
basic problems of literary theory.
