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06/23/2019

Comments

Bill Benzon

Yes, the evolutionists tend to be rather flatfooted about art. I recently read quickly through a study based on the premise that stories provided a way of pre-rehearsing certain "ordeals" that are relatively rare, but quite important should one occur. The found that, among fictional causes of death, murders tend to be unusually frequent that one might expect. It didn't seem to occur to them that stories about murder might be as much, if not more, about the murderer as about the victim. But then that wouldn't be so consistent with the hypothesis.

But there seems to be less of this stuff around than there was a few years ago. Joseph Carroll now has an annual that he edits, along with a book series, so I get wind of that every now and then. Otherwise, not much.

Daniel Green

I admit I haven't kept up with evolutionary literary theory recently. I did read Carroll's Evolution and Literary Theory back when.

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