American Renaissance & American Romanticism:
terms & themes from objectives

"Romance" as narrative genre

In everyday speech "romance" suggests love.

The term's meaning in literature is consistent with this popular usage but applies broadly to an important narrative concept in literature.

pop cultural uses: Harlequin romance, American Romance classics

true love, happily ever after, ends on a kiss

academic uses:

—a kind of story or narrative—“quest,” rescue, transcendence (happily ever after)—fairy tales, Arthurian tales of nights in shining armor, long ago and far away

ex. Star Wars, Officer and Gentleman, Dances with Wolves

romantic comedy: Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally

Overview of narrative genres:

“Narrative genre” refers to the kind of story or plot that a work of literature tells or enacts. The source for such literary criticism is Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (1957), according to which there are four basic story lines:

Though distinct, these narratives often work in combination—for instance, romantic comedy. Or an episode of one narrative genre may appear in another, like the comic gravedigger’s scene in the tragedy of Hamlet.

Tragedy. The story begins with a problem that is significant to society, its leaders, or its representatives. The problem may originate in the “tragic flaw” of the hero or heroine, or it may represent a temptation or error that human beings recognize, such as greed, vanity, or self-righteousness. Either way, the error or fault or problem is intimate and integral to our human identities; it is not "objectified" to a villain or outside force, as in romance. The action consists of an attempt to discover the truth about the problem, to follow or trace or absorb its consequences, to restore justice (even at cost to oneself), or to regain moral control of the situation. The tragedy ends with the resolution of the problem and the restoration of justice, often accompanied by the death, banishment, or quieting of the tragic hero.

Comedy. This story-line also often begins with a problem or a mistake (as in mistaken identity), but the problem is less significant than tragedy. The problem may involve a recognizable social situation, but unlike tragedy, the problem does not intimately threaten or shake the audience, the state, or the larger world. The problem often takes the form of mistaken or false identity: one person being taken for another, disguises, cross-dressing, dressing up or down. The action consists of characters trying to resolve the problem or live up to the demands of the false identity, or of other characters trying to reconcile the “new identity” with the “old identity.” Comedy ends with the problem overcome or the disguise abandoned. Usually the problem was simply “a misunderstanding” rather than a tragic error. The concluding action of a comedy is easy to identify. Characters join in marriage, song, dance, or a party, demonstrating a restoration of unity. (TV "situation comedies" like Friends or The Cosby Show end with the characters re-uniting in a living room or some other common space.) Occasionally, as in slapstick or farce, comic endings are “circular” with the beginning: the comic characters simply “run away,” supposedly to continue the comic action elsewhere, as in the conclusion of some sketches by the Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy.  In “dark comedy,” the conclusion is sometimes one of exhaustion, as in The War of the Roses or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Romance. This story may open as though all is well, but action usually begins with a problem of separation. Characters are separated from each other (e. g., a true-love romance), or a need arises to rescue someone (a lost-child story); or characters are separated from some object of desire (as with the search for the Holy Grail or Romancing the Stone or a lottery ticket). Action often takes the form of a physical journey or adventure; characters may be captured or threatened and rescued. Action may take the form of a personal transformation or a journey across class lines, as in Cinderella, Pretty Woman, or An Officer and a Gentleman.  The conclusion of a romance narrative is typically “transcendence”—“getting away from it all” or “rising above it all.” The characters “live happily ever after” or “ride off into the sunset” or “fly away” from the scenes of their difficulties (in contrast with tragedy’s social engagement or comedy’s restored unity). Characters in romance tend to be starkly good or bad, in contrast with tragedy’s “mixed” characters. The problem that starts the action is usually attributed less to a flaw in the hero than to a villain or some outside force. (Most Hollywood movies are romances, but some “independent movies” involve tragedy.)

Satire.  The word “satire” appropriately comes from the Greek for “mixed-dish,” as its story-line tends to be extremely episodic and opportunistic. In fact, the satiric narrative depends for its narrative integrity on the audience’s knowledge of the original story being satirized. For instance, Hot Shots appears to be simply an unconnected series of goofy scenes unless you’ve seen Top Gun, in which case you know that episodes from the satire spoof or parody episodes from the original film. Young Frankenstein similarly depends on a familiarity with the original Frankenstein or at least with the cliches of old-time horror movies. (As a single-voiced example, an impersonator depends on his audience’s knowledge of a celebrity’s mannerisms and foibles.)  Structurally, the satirical narrative will end somewhat like the original narrative, but, in terms of tone, the seriousness or pretensions of the original narrative will be deflated.

 

Reference resources on Romance

from A Handbook to Literature, by C. Hugh Holman (3d ed.), Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972.

Romance:  This word was first used for Old French as a language derived from Latin or "Roman" to distinguish it from Latin itself (this meaning has now been extended so that any of the languages derived from Latin, such as Spanish or Italian, is called a Romance language).  Later romance was applied to any work written in French, and as stories of knights and their deeds were the dominant form of Old French Literature, the word romance was narrowed to mean such stories. . . .  Special modern uses of the word romance may be noted from the account in the New English Dictionary: "romantic fiction"; "an extravagant fiction"; a "fictitious narrative in prose of which the scene and incidents are very remote from those of ordinary life . . . .  Romance is now frequently used as a term to designate a kind of fiction that differs from the novel in being more freely the product of the author's imagination than the product of an effort to represent the actual world with verisimilitude.  In American literature, in particular, it has become fashionable to speak of the "tradition of the American novel" as being that of the romance . . . .

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from Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957.

            In the form in which we possess it, most of [European fiction] has already moved into the category of romance.  Romance divides into two main forms: a secular form dealing with chivalry and knight-errantry, and a religious form devoted to legends of saints.  Both lean heavily on miraculous violations of natural law for their interest as stories. (34)

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from A Handbook to Literature, by C. Hugh Holman (3d ed.), Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972.

Medieval Romance:  Medieval romances are tales of adventure in which knights, kings, or distressed ladies, acting under the impulse of love, religious faith, or the mere desire for adventure, are the chief figures.  The medieval romance appears in Old French literature of the twelfth century as a form which supplants the older chanson de geste, an epic form.  The epic reflects an heroic age whereas the romance reflects a chivalric age; the epic has weight and solidity, whereas the romance exhibits mystery and fantasy; the epic does not stress rank or social distinctions, important in the romance . . . .  Structurally, the medieval romance follows the loose pattern of the quest. . . .