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 l[...]

In recent years, articles in major periodicals from the New York Times Magazine to the Times Literary Supplement have heralded the arrival of a new school of literary studies that promises-or threatens-to profoundly shift the current paradigm. This revolutionary approach, known as Darwinian literary[...]