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I think there are so many reasons why Darwin's theory of evolution is one of the greatest ever conceived and developed.  There's the story behind it, the Beagle voyage, the social implications, Darwin's reluctance to publish, which is pretty incredible.  There's also the fact that the intellectual rigor and experimentation Darwin applied to his theory, spending years testing his theory in every way he possibly could, which is one of the reasons Darwin is so representative of how science and scientists should be.  But I've always been attracted to how the theory of evolution is so beautifully applicable to fields outside of biology.  There's now a field of psychology referred to as evolutionary psychology, it has affected anthropologists, doctors, scientists, and anyone with any intellectual curiosity.  Which is why I'm interested in this course.  I believe literature evolves in a fashion very similar to natural selection, in the sense that it is constantly changing depending on the readers (our sense of historical works changes, as does the literature being produced), but also in a perpetual dialogue with the past.