Graphing Jane Austen: The Evolutionary Basis of Literary Meaning

Why have we evolved to delight in telling stories and listening to them? Can literary meaning be discovered through data? What is more important to the identity of a literary character: gender or moral disposition? This boldly original study answers such questions and thus changes the debate about literary Darwinism. Constructing an evolutionary model of human nature and adopting scientific methods of research, this book explains the organization of characters in nineteenth-century British novels, yields rich insights into specific literary works, and demonstrates that evolutionary thinking can solve basic problems of literary theory.

Joseph Carroll is Curators' Professor of English at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. He is the author of Evolution and Literary Theory, Literary Darwinism, and Reading Human Nature. He co-edited Evolution, Literature, and Film: A Reader and the first two annual volumes of The Evolutionary Review: Art, Science, Culture.

Jonathan Gottschall teaches English at Washington Jefferson College. He is the author of The Rape of Troy: Evolution, Violence, and the World of Homer; Literature, Science and a New Humanities; and The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.

John A. Johnson is a professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, DuBois. He is the co-editor of Advanced Methods for Conducting Online Behavioral Research and his research has been featured in Psychology Today, Omni, The New York Times, and CBS Radio.

Daniel J. Kruger is an assistant research professor at the University of Michigan. He has authored and co-authored more than two dozen peer-reviewed articles and his research has been featured in over one hundred media reports.