Charlottesville Words

Deconstructionism is so 1985 — it’s time for a new literary theory. Jonathan Gottschall proposes literary Darwinism:

By applying evolution-based thinking to fiction, we believe we can invigorate the study of literature, while at the same time mining an untapped source of information for the scientific study of human nature (see “Truth in fiction”). Darwinian thinking can help us better understand why characters act and think as they do, why plots and themes resonate within such very narrow bounds of variation, and the ultimate reasons for the human animal’s strange, ardent love affair with stories.

It may sound like an innocent endeavour, but this is potentially revolutionary. If literary Darwinism is mainly right, then much of what has been written and said in the realm of literary theory and criticism in the second half of the 20th century is in need of significant revision.

And just in time! Literary studies are in a precipitous “free fall”: “Perhaps worst of all, literary scholars are at risk of being presented as a laughing stock by novelists and held up to ridicule by satirical journalists.” Literary Darwinists to the rescue — “We have posed two questions: what exactly is science doing right that we are doing so wrong, and can we emulate it?”

Gottschall illustrates the solution with an intriguing evolutionary reading of the Iliad, and outlines a couple of experiments that attempt to test the principles of evolution against different kinds of literature. He concludes that what the humanities needs is, well, more science:

Literary Darwinism is still at a stage of adolescent awkwardness. Nevertheless, we believe our approach has the potential to breathe new life into a struggling field. In literary studies, faulty theories of human nature have given rise to faulty theories of literature, which have in turn generated faulty hypotheses.

BECAUSE LITERARY methods are exclusively non-quantitative and often impressionistic, these hypotheses have rarely been systematically tested. As a result, literary scholars have seldom produced knowledge that can withstand the critiques of the next generation. At least literary Darwinism offers hope of breaking out of this cycle. At best we will start to build a literary understanding that can progress in much the same way that science progresses. It is a bold experiment that may not succeed, but what experiment worth doing is risk-free?

Here’s the thing, though. I trained as a scientist, and I do believe there is no human endeavor, including literature, that can’t be investigated scientifically, as long as you frame your hypothesis in a testable way. I’m just not sure that literary studies are trying to achieve “knowledge that can withstand the critiques of the next generation.” Each generation has to read its own literature and that of the past in its own way. We’re lucky that we’ve gained enough perspective that we can examine the Iliad from many more angles than its original readers could. It’s also true that our reading of the Iliad in 2007 is not the same reading we would have had in 1907 or will have in 2107. Understanding the evolutionary pressures that are reflected in the events of the Iliad or any other work of literature provides a very interesting insight into the work, but it’s not the only insight possible.