ASEBL Journal – Volume 11 Issue 1, January 2015
Rhythm, Evolution and Neuroscience in Lullabies and Poetry
Dustin Hellberg
Abstract
This paper will attempt a methodological configuration to link the natural sciences
(evolutionary theory and neurology) to literature (lullabies and poetry, specifically). It
uses findings in neuroscience and animal neurology as well as the theories of evolution by natural selection in to examine patterns in lullabies, and then connect these to
poetry. As one will never find a ‘metaphor gene’, nor do genes even code for behaviors – coding instead for traits – is it possible to even locate overlaps between the disciplines of natural science and literature? Doing so requires a mixed methods approach. This article seeks to build on the existing philosophical and theoretical ground
of current natural science in order to establish a dialogue with current cultural and literary theories.
Key words: Charles Peirce, Susan Haack, mirror neurons, lullabies, evolution, literary theory
Methods and Meanings
The philosopher Charles Peirce said, “Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what
we do not doubt in our hearts” (1974: 157). The fact of evolution by natural selection
has long been established as thoroughly as any scientific theory, and yet it is puzzling
to witness the continuing doubt regarding its potential influences in the humanities,
and in literary studies specifically. “Among the sophisticates, the controversy does not
center on the basic fact of evolution but on certain consequences, such as the importance of natural selection and especially the relevance of evolution to human affairs. The intellectual positions most fiercely opposed to ‘sociobiology’ and ‘evolutionary psychology’ include social constructivism, postmodernism, and deconstruction” (David Wilson 2005: 21). I would like to suggest that mapping the connections
between seemingly incommensurable disciplines is in fact possible, through an interdisciplinary methodology. Recent discoveries in animal neurology (human and nonhuman) and the brain’s relation to rhythm, music and isopraxic mimicry open doors
for the interrelation between the brain and language, the interrelation between the
evolved human brain and a work of literature. Specifically, I will look toward poetry
as an extension of basic neural reaction to rhythmic sound and pattern, trace that
through mirror neurons and symbolic representational action, and then try to bridge
these to poetry by examining patterns in lullabies owing to their reliance on metric
form, musicality and metaphor, all of which will be shown to have a strong relationship to the human brain’s neurological functions. The strong reliance on science here
necessitates that fallibilism remains the guiding ethos.
Susan Haack outlines a definition of fallibilism along Peircean lines. Fallibilism, for
Haack, helps to avoid the trap of the hypothetico-deductive method of Popper while
also staying clear of linguistically relative traps of a more modern philosophical stripe
(Haack, 2013: 181-183). These notions are especially important in attempting a methodology compatible with literature. Literary works are by their naturei falsified and
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