Altruism, Love, and Justice in Beowulf: A Critical Discourse Analysis with an Evolutionary Perspective

Abstract

In this paper, the projections of the evolutionary archetypes in discursive or narrative texts are analyzed through Critical Discourse Analysis with an evolutionary perspective of not only natural selection but also sexual selection. Accordingly, contents such as altruism, love and justice which refer to uneconomical and superfluous human behaviors in terms of natural selection but certifiable in terms of sexual selection were analyzed, categorized, compared, and contrasted in discursive and narrative texts quoted from the old English epic poem ‘Beowulf’. Initially, the narrative and discursive texts in the poem were identified on the basis of their contents of grammatical features such as person, modality, and tense as well as space and time references. Next, the distribution of the concepts related to altruism, love, and justice as well as their synonyms, or closely related lexemes such as selfishness, sex, and interest in narrative and discursive texts were identified and categorized. Finally, these qualitative findings were compared, contrasted, and criticized through evolutionary archetypes. In conclusion, contents such as altruism, love and justice which refer to uneconomical and superfluous human behaviors in terms of natural selection but certifiable in terms of sexual selection were largely found to be used in discursive texts. However, originally pragmatist contents such as utility, sex, and interest which refer to our evolutionary subluminal experiences were largely found to be used in narrative texts. That is to say, discursive contents contradict with our evolutionary background but conforms to the political or sexual strategies, seeking ‘will to power’ or ‘will to mate’. This study is significant not only because the literary data were discussed through an evolutionary critical analysis but also because it identifies a clear distinction between discourse and narrative on the basis of conceptual manipulation.