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W HAT W E THINK ABOUT W HEN W E THINK ABOUT FICTIONAL CHARACTERS 1 W ILLIAM FLESCH The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, puzzling over the (literally) innite subtlety required for our effortless ability to understand, interact, play with, hate, love, resent, and care about each other, said that in the last analysis what makes these things possible is “agreement…in forms of life.” Übereinstimmung might be better and more literally translated (as Stanley Cavell points out) not quite as “agreement” but as a kind of harmonizing. We are similar to each other in profoundly complicated ways, and it is part of our similarity (and what makes this “complicated form of life” what it i s) that this similarity explicitly matters to us—and that it matters to me that it should matter to you as well. Why is this? The ultimate answer, as th e word phrase “forms of life” implies, is biological: “What has to be accepted, the given, is—so one could say— forms of life.” But can studying biology, can discover- ing unobvious dimensions of the complicated form of life that we are, give us any important insights into the human experience of literature (and the other arts)? To the extent that literary theory and literary criticism always seek to alter, enrich, change, correct, illuminate, or expand our intrinsic experience of literature, does a biological approach to this humanistic goal have anything to offer? I stress literature because “cultural studies” is mainly the province of English departments with extended missions. So it’s no surprise that this “Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies” is largely focused on literature ,too (mainly narrative, including lm and theater) and on literary theory. Although some of the contributions also consider our cognitive capacities to appreciate such other universal cultural experiences as music and dance (G. Gabrielle Starr, in her highly informative essay on “Multisensory Imagery”) 1 Review of Lisa Zunshine, ed., Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies ( Baltimore: The Johns Hopk ins UP, 2010). ix + 387 pp. © symploke symploke Vol. 18, Nos. 1-2 (2010) ISSN 1069-0697, 327-332. Vol. 18, Nos. 1-2 (2010) ISSN 1069-0697, 327-332.
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W HATW E THINK ABOUT
W HENW E THINK ABOUT
FICTIONAL CHARACTERS1
W ILLIAM FLESCH
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, puzzling over the (literally)innite subtlety required for our effortless ability to understand, interact,play with, hate, love, resent, and care about each other, said that in the lastanalysis what makes these things possible is “agreement…in forms of life.”Übereinstimmung might be better and more literally translated (as StanleyCavell points out) not quite as “agreement” but as a kind of harmonizing. Weare similar to each other in profoundly complicated ways, and it is part of oursimilarity (and what makes this “complicated form of life” what it is) that thissimilarity explicitly matters to us—and that it matters to me that it shouldmatter to you as well. Why is this? The ultimate answer, as the word phrase“forms of life” implies, is biological: “What has to be accepted, the given,is—so one could say— forms of life.” But can studying biology, can discover-ing unobvious dimensions of the complicated form of life that we are, give usany important insights into the human experience of literature (and the otherarts)? To the extent that literary theory and literary criticism always seek toalter, enrich, change, correct, illuminate, or expand our intrinsic experience ofliterature, does a biological approach to this humanistic goal have anythingto offer?
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and painting (Ellen Spolsky), as well as more restricted experiences like lm(Patrick Colm Hogan), most people will read this book for the fairly variedways it treats literary texts and works. (The editor’s introduction to thewhole book and her shorter introductions to its four different but somewhatarbitrarily divided sections, as well as the footnotes and bibliography, areextremely helpful.)
The general approach of this book is clearly, obviously, and rightlyindebted to a Darwinian form of biological thinking (see, especially,
Nancy Easterlin’s beautiful and surprisingly moving essay on “CognitiveEcocriticism”), but it’s explicitly offering an alternative to the narrower andon the whole less sophisticated claims made by the movement that calls itselfliterary Darwinism, which, as Zunshine hints, has sometimes been almostwillfully insensitive to the subtlety of the literature it considers (313). LiteraryDarwinism tends to what Stephen Jay Gould called Just-So stories about our
relation to literature. It more or less overtly takes the line that literature istransparent, and that we react to literary worlds (at least emotionally) asevolution has primed us to react to the real world, although sometimes inthe mode of play and training rather than in the mode of serious engage-ment with reality. Thus, literature, the literary Darwinists say, appeals to ourbiological concerns with survival and reproduction, and we can interpret any
prevalent trope, idea, story, or emotional investment as ministering to ourmost basic interest in our own (that is, in our genes’) reproductive success.
Although there’s considerable overlap between the two movements, andsome of the best essays in this book are by people who would call themselvesliterary Darwinists as well, literary Darwinism is often complacent andunsubtle in its claims about what really matters in any literary work. Its main
question is adaptationist. It asks “What is the purpose of literature?” andunpacks that question like this: “What biological purpose would ultimatelyinduce a ctional character to act the way she does act?” in whatever workis under discussion. Add to that idea that art affords pretend rehearsal forthe real world, and the adaptationist view of ction, with all its crudeness, iscomplete.
William Flesch Fictional Characters
