Books in the Evolution, Cognition, and the Arts series

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.

Darwin famously proposed that sexual competition is the driving force of ""art"" production not only in animals, but also in humans. This book reveals that Darwin's hypothesis, rather than amounting to a full-blown antidote to the humanist tradition, is actually informed by classical rhetoric and by English and German philosophical aesthetics.