Evolution and Literary Theory

Carroll anatomizes the irrationalism of current literary theory with surgical precision. In a concise, lucid prose, he lays bare the sophistries at the heart of the doctrines propounded by Derrida, Foucault, Jameson, Greenblatt, Eagleton, J. Hillis Miller, Fish, and many others. In opposition to the textualism and indeterminacy that constitute the central doctrines of poststructuralism, Carroll affiliates himself with a realist and naturalist tradition of thought that runs from Darwin and Huxley, through Leslie Stephen and Thorstein Veblen, to Konrad Lorenz and Karl Popper. He offers a comprehensive synthesis of current evolutionary theory in the human sciences, and he shows why the evolutionary paradigm provides the only adequate source for a modern theory of culture.

Carroll anatomizes the irrationalism of current literary theory with surgical precision. In a concise, lucid prose, he lays bare the sophistries at the heart of the doctrines propounded by Derrida, Foucault, Jameson, Greenblatt, Eagleton, J. Hillis Miller, Fish, and many others. In opposition to the textualism and indeterminacy that constitute the central doctrines of poststructuralism, Carroll affiliates himself with a realist and naturalist tradition of thought that runs from Darwin and Huxley, through Leslie Stephen and Thorstein Veblen, to Konrad Lorenz and Karl Popper. He offers a comprehensive synthesis of current evolutionary theory in the human sciences, and he shows why the evolutionary paradigm provides the only adequate source for a modern theory of culture.

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Carroll (English, U. of Missouri) attacks the principles of poststructuralism and offers a new theory that situates literary criticism within the matrix of evolutionary theory. He affiliates himself with a realist and naturalist tradition of thought that runs from Darwin and Huxley through Konrad Lorenz and Karl Popper. He offers a synthesis of current evolutionary theory in the human sciences, and illustrates his arguments with references to writers of various periods. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Joseph Carroll is the author of The Cultural Theory of Matthew Arnold and Wallace Stevens' Supreme Fiction.  He is Professor of English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.