Evolutionary psychology and experimental literary criticism

In the middle of the 20th century, some scholars in the field of literature decided that literature should move in the direction of experimental methodology, and researchers in the field of social sciences should also recognize the vital importance of imagination and its related works. They should include this issue in their current research programs and not leave such an important issue to purely theoretical interpretation formulations. This caused different approaches to approach literary texts from the perspective of empirical science. One of these approaches was evolutionary psychology, which tried to advance experimental literary criticism with a Darwinian attitude. The present article is an attempt to explain the relationship between experimental sciences, especially evolutionary biology, with humanities and social sciences, especially in the field of literary criticism. For this purpose, after a brief report of Darwin's theory of natural selection and its impact on the knowledge of psychology, we have introduced the methodology of evolutionary psychology, then we have shown its application in literary criticism and tested it by citing examples.

This descriptive-analytical research was conducted in a library manner using first-hand sources in the field of literary criticism based on evolutionary psychology.

If we want to advance the study of literary texts in a scientific-experimental way, the closest and most efficient way is to use Darwinian ontology and anthropology and use the evolution methodology based on natural selection.

Finally, based on the aforementioned premises, we have claimed that if evolutionary psychology can provide a convincing and comprehensive account of human nature, it can ultimately replace the dominant explanatory systems in the human sciences today, or include them and place them in its heart and naturally enter the field. To create an ontological and epistemological transformation in literary criticism.