Prelinguistic and Preliterate Substrates of Poetic Narrative

Abstract

Despite its long oral and unrecorded history, literature means for most people printed texts and reading. Yet shades of this preliterate past remain and con- tinue to affect our responses to written literary forms today. Studies of mothers' interactions with prelinguistic infants reveal proto-aesthetic characteristic s that babies prefer to adult-directed speech, suggesting that adult psychology and experi- ence grow from and build'upon inborn motives and preferences. Synthesizing con- temporary concepts and findings from developmental psychology, ethology, evolu- tionary psychology, paleoarchaeology, and neuroscience, this article describes five proto-aesthetic devices and three principles of salience that universally inhere in mother/infant interaction and that remain important substrates of emotional response to literature. The article argues that our sensitivity to some nonverbal, emotional, and aesthetic aspects of literary narrative and other arts originated in an adaptive social context in our evolutionary past. 1. Aesthetic Receptivity in Adults Arises from ^ inborn Predispositions of infants