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A romance novel or romantic novel is a genre fiction novel that primary focuses on the relationship and romantic love between two people, typically with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.
- Overview
- The component elements
- Style and subject matter
- Developing psychological awareness
- Sources and parallels
romance, literary form, usually characterized by its treatment of chivalry, that came into being in France in the mid-12th century. It had antecedents in many prose works from classical antiquity (the so-called Greek romances), but as a distinctive genre it was developed in the context of the aristocratic courts of such patrons as Eleanor of Aquitaine.
(Read Sir Walter Scott’s 1824 Britannica essay on chivalry.)
The Old French word romanz originally meant “the speech of the people,” or “the vulgar tongue,” from a popular Latin word, Romanice, meaning written in the vernacular, in contrast with the written form of literary Latin. Its meaning then shifted from the language in which the work was written to the work itself. Thus, an adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (1135–38), made by Wace of Jersey in 1155, was known as Li Romanz de Brut, while an anonymous adaptation (of slightly later date) of Virgil’s Aeneid was known as Li Romanz d’Enéas; it is difficult to tell whether in such cases li romanz still meant “the French version” or had already come to mean “the story.” It soon specialized in the latter sense, however, and was applied to narrative compositions similar in character to those imitated from Latin sources but totally different in origin; and, as the nature of these compositions changed, the word itself acquired an increasingly wide spectrum of meanings. In modern French a roman is just a novel, whatever its content and structure; while in modern English the word “romance” (derived from Old French romanz) can mean either a medieval narrative composition or a love affair, or, again, a story about a love affair, generally one of a rather idyllic or idealized type, sometimes marked by strange or unexpected incidents and developments; and “to romance” has come to mean “to make up a story that has no connection with reality.”
For a proper understanding of these changes it is essential to know something of the history of the literary form to which, since the Middle Ages, the term has been applied. The account that follows is intended to elucidate historically some of the ways in which the word is used in English and in other European languages.
The romances of love, chivalry, and adventure produced in 12th-century France have analogues elsewhere, notably in what are sometimes known as the Greek romances—narrative works in prose by Greek writers from the 1st century bc to the 3rd century ad. The first known, the fragmentary Ninus romance, in telling the story of the love of Ninus, mythical...
But the real debt of 12th-century romance to classical antiquity was incurred in a sphere outside that of subject matter. During the present century, scholars have laid ever-increasing emphasis on the impact of late classical antiquity upon the culture of medieval Europe, especially on that of medieval France. In particular, it is necessary to note the place that rhetoric (the systematic study of oratory) had assumed in the educational system of the late Roman Empire. Originally conceived as part of the training for public speaking, essential for the lawyer and politician, it had by this time become a literary exercise, the art of adorning or expanding a set theme: combined with grammar and enshrined in the educational system inherited by the Christian Church, rhetoric became an important factor in the birth of romance. Twelfth-century romance was, at the outset, the creation of “clerks”—professional writers who had been trained in grammar (that is to say, the study of the Latin language and the interpretation of Latin authors) and in rhetoric in the cathedral schools. They were skilled in the art of exposition, by which a subject matter was not only developed systematically but also given such meaning as the author thought appropriate. The “romance style” was, apparently, first used by the authors of three romans d’antiquité, all composed in the period 1150–65: Roman de Thebes, an adaptation of the epic Thebaïs by the late Latin poet Statius; Roman d’Enéas, adapted from Virgil’s Aeneid; and Roman de Troie, a retelling by Benoît de Sainte-Maure of the tale of Troy, based not on Homer (who was not known in western Europe, where Greek was not normally read) but on 4th- and 5th-century Latin versions. In all three, style and subject matter are closely interconnected; elaborate set descriptions, in which the various features of what is described are gone through, item by item, and eulogized, result in the action’s taking place in lavish surroundings, resplendent with gold, silver, marble, fine textiles, and precious stones. To these embellishments are added astonishing works of architecture and quaint technological marvels, that recall the Seven Wonders of the World and the reputed glories of Byzantium. Troie and Enéas have, moreover, a strong love interest, inspired by the Roman poet Ovid’s conception of love as a restless malady. This concept produced the first portrayal in Western literature of the doubts, hesitations, and self-torment of young lovers, as exemplified in the Achilles–Polyxena story in Troie and in the Aeneas–Lavinia story in Enéas. Yet even more important is the way in which this new theme is introduced: the rhetorical devices appropriate to expounding an argument are here employed to allow a character in love to explore his own feelings, to describe his attitude to the loved one, and to explain whatever action he is about to take.
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As W.P. Ker, a pioneer in the study of medieval epic and romance, observed in his Epic and Romance (1897), the advent of romance is “something as momentous and as far-reaching as that to which the name Renaissance is generally applied.” The Old French poets who composed the chansons de geste (as the Old French epics are called) had been content to ...
Where exactly medieval romance writers found their material when they were not simply copying classical or pseudo-classical models is still a highly controversial issue. Parallels to certain famous stories, such as that of Tristan and Iseult, have been found in regions as wide apart as Persia and Ireland: in the mid-11th-century Persian epic of Wis...
- Reedsy
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Buy on Amazon. Though Jane Eyre might be ‘poor, obscure, plain and little’, her love story is anything but. One of the authoritative classics of the genre, Jane Eyre’s enduring popularity is testament to the power of its central romance.
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Buy on Amazon. A sprawling epic that takes readers across continents in the name of love, Anna Karenina is one of the longest books on this list, coming to an intimidating 800+ pages.
- Love in the Time of Cholera (Oprah's Book Club) by Gabriel Garcia Márquez. Buy on Amazon. Florentino Ariza has been waiting for 50 years for his true love to return.
- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Buy on Amazon. This classic fish-out-of-water tale follows Margaret, a nineteen-year-old girl whose life is turned upside down when her family relocates from a sleepy village to Darkshire — a rough and restless industrial town in the north of England.
Sep 2, 2022 · Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Sep 2, 2022 • 5 min read. From love affairs set in England’s Regency era to contemporary sensual affairs, romance novels continually top the New York Times best-selling charts. These stories are aspirational, optimistic, and provide escapism.
Feb 13, 2024 · In a romance novel, the love story is the main plot, and point, of the book. This is not to say that romance novels don't address and explore ideas and concerns outside of the central relationship. There may well be subplots.
- Pan Macmillan
Apr 28, 2021 · Tales of love that are actually real. In anticipation of Cupid's favorite holiday, we’ve rounded up the most touching and tear-jerking true romantic stories that are sweeter than anything you'll find in a Valentine's Day movie.
May 2, 2024 · Romanticism is a literary movement spanning roughly 1790–1850. The movement was characterized by a celebration of nature and the common man, a focus on individual experience, an idealization of women, and an embrace of isolation and melancholy.
