Literature as an Evolutionary Adaptation
Keywords:
literature and evolution, literary Darwinism, evolutionary adaptation, essentialism, contextualismAbstract
The question whether literature is an evolutionary adaptation or a mere byproduct of evolution represents a focal point of literary Darwinism, a relatively new school of literary theoretic and interpretative thought. The paper investigates the most influential Darwinist argumentations supporting the notion of literature as an adaptation. The second purpose of the paper is to rethink the central position of adaptationism in literary Darwinist approaches to literature. The author maintains that: 1) the adaptionistic hypothesis about literature remains problematic, and 2) that the adaptionistic hypothesis does not necessarily play a central role in literary Darwinist research programs.References
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