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Evolution (Biology) in literature

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Evolution (Biology) in literature --- Biology in literature --- Social Darwinism

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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 cultural-historical 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.

American literature --- Evolution (Biology) in literature. --- LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General. --- History and criticism.

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Evolutionary theory sparked numerous speculations about human development, and one of the most ardently embraced was the idea that children are animals recapitulating the ascent of the species. After Darwin's Origin of Species, scientific, pedagogical, and literary works featuring beastly babes and wild children interrogated how our ancestors evolved and what children must do in order to repeat this course to humanity. Exploring fictions by Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carroll, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Charles Kingsley, and Margaret Gatty, Jessica Straley argues that Victorian children's literature not only adopted this new taxonomy of the animal child, but also suggested ways to complete the child's evolution. In the midst of debates about elementary education and the rising dominance of the sciences, children's authors plotted miniaturized evolutions for their protagonists and readers and, more pointedly, proposed that the decisive evolutionary leap for both our ancestors and ourselves is the advent of the literary imagination.

Children's literature, English --- Evolution (Biology) in literature --- Imagination in literature --- English Literature --- English --- Languages & Literatures --- History and criticism --- Evolution (Biology) in literature. --- Imagination in literature. --- History and criticism.

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American poetry --- Evolution (Biology) in literature. --- Evolution in literature. --- Cosmology in literature. --- Optimism in literature. --- History and criticism.