Carroll, Joseph. "From Evolution Comes Literature." FORBES.COM February 5, 2009.

Literature depends on literacy, a very recent acquisition in human evolutionary history--so recent that it cannot plausibly be considered an adaptation. But people in all non-literate cultures use language, tell stories and play with words in creative and evocative ways. Written language is just a cultural technology that extends those universal human aptitudes. Literature and its oral antecedents are thus part of the basic profile of "human nature." Over the past 15 years or so, literary scholars in a small but now rapidly growing group have argued that producing an adequate theory of literature requires an evolutionary conception of human nature. By assimilating evolutionary social science, these "literary Darwinists" aim to form a new paradigm for the study of literature. Not surprisingly, that grand ambition has often met with a skeptical response: "There have been previous efforts to establish a scientifically based criticism--Marxism, psychoanalysis, structuralism. All these efforts have failed. Why would your effort be any different?" Not a bad question, but we have a good answer. This effort is different because the historical moment is ripe. We now have, for the first time, an empirically grounded psychology that is sufficiently robust to account for the products of the human imagination. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/05/evolution-literature-psychology-opinions-darwin09_0205_joseph_carroll.html?partner=email.