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Abstract
This chapter discusses Winnetou i , a very famous adventure novel by Karl May, who was the most popular best-selling author in Germany at the turn of the 20th century. The accounts of his fictive travels to North America continue to shape German conceptions of Native American culture; they are considered to be milestones in popular literature. Alongside with leading biopoetic scholars in German Studies, I favor the by-product hypothesis, arguing that popular literature is not categorically different from highbrow literature, in that it operates on the same evolved cognitive dispositions. My study discusses major evolutionary themes in Karl May’s work, such as survival in the wilderness, as well as biopoetic underpinnings of very specific features of May’s adventure plot, his linguistic style and narrative technique, and also the cognitive processes involved in the reception of his works.
Abstract
This chapter discusses Winnetou i , a very famous adventure novel by Karl May, who was the most popular best-selling author in Germany at the turn of the 20th century. The accounts of his fictive travels to North America continue to shape German conceptions of Native American culture; they are considered to be milestones in popular literature. Alongside with leading biopoetic scholars in German Studies, I favor the by-product hypothesis, arguing that popular literature is not categorically different from highbrow literature, in that it operates on the same evolved cognitive dispositions. My study discusses major evolutionary themes in Karl May’s work, such as survival in the wilderness, as well as biopoetic underpinnings of very specific features of May’s adventure plot, his linguistic style and narrative technique, and also the cognitive processes involved in the reception of his works.