The early evolutionary imagination : Literature and human nature 1st ed.

Author

• Jonsson, Emelie

Additional Author(s)

-

Publisher

Cham, Switzerland : Springer International Publishing, 2021

Language

English

ISBN

9783030827380

Series

Cognitive studies in literature and performance

Subject(s)

• EVOLUTION IN LITERATURE
• LITERATURE, MODERN

Notes

. .

Abstract

Darwinian evolution is an imaginative problem that has been passed down to us unsolved. It is our most powerful explanation of humanity’s place in nature, but it is also more cognitively demanding and less emotionally satisfying than any myth. From the publication of the Origin of Species in 1859, evolution has pushed our capacity for storytelling into overdrive, sparking fairy tales, adventure stories, political allegories, utopias, dystopias, social realist novels, and existential meditations. Though this influence on literature has been widely studied, it has not been explained psychologically. This book argues for the adaptive function of storytelling, integrates traditional humanist scholarship with current knowledge about the evolved and adapted human mind, and calls for literary scholars to reframe their interpretation of the first authors who responded to Darwin.

Physical Dimension

Number of Page(s)

1 online resource (xii, 300 p.)

Dimension

-

Other Desc.

-

Summary / Review / Table of Content

Chapter 1: Using Evolution to Explain the Evolutionary Imagination.-
Chapter 2 Myth-Making in Early Evolutionary Thought.-
Chapter 3: Darwinism in Literature.-
Chapter 4: From Adventure to Utopia.-
Chapter 5: Jack London's Evolutionary Imagination.-
Chapter 6: H. G. Wells's Evolutionary Imagination.-
Chapter 7: Joseph Conrad's Evolutionary Imagination.-
The Unimaginable Place in Nature.

Exemplar(s)

#	Accession No.	Call Number	Location	Status
1.	00629/22	809.9336 Jon E	Online !	Available