-
Stalking the Gaps: The Biopoetics of Haiku
- Mosaic: a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature
- Mosaic, an interdisciplinary critical journal
- Volume 46, Number 4, December 2013
- pp. 91-107
- 10.1353/mos.2013.0037
- Article
- Additional Information
Examined through the lens of evolutionary literary criticism, or “biopoetics,” haiku exemplifies several evocritical ideas about the adaptive functions of art. It is an exercise in “making special,” or marking significant rituals, a means of promoting social bonding, and a kind of cognitive play that exercises our abilities in symbolic thought.