In literature, the term romance encompasses several types of writing. To modern readers, a romance is simply a love story where plot and event are secondary to the emotions of the characters. The first important romance was Daphnis and Chloe, written by Longus in ancient Greek. The romance genre began to evolve in the Middle Ages and initially referred to any narrative written in the vernacular or native language. The medieval romance differed from the epic in that it featured lighter subject matter; though they might borrow epic events and involve issues of heroism, strength, or greatness, the romances typically featured knights and ladies and described their adventures in terms of chivalry and courtly love. The romance possessed qualities of lightness and mystery, and tended to be looser in construction than the weighty epic.
During the renaissance, the romance transformed into a new genre, the romantic epic. The style gained popularity and achieved credibility as a lengthy narrative poem combining aspects of medieval romance with features of the classical epic. The traditional elements of the romance, such as a loose structure and an emphasis on love, incorporated such epic conventions as elaborate similes, long speeches, and an invocation to a muse to turn love into the greatest and most lofty pursuit available to the human soul.
Italian Renaissance poets Matteo Maria Boiardo and Ludovico ariosto used the romantic epic form in their lengthy verse narratives on Roland, which elaborate on the medieval Song of Roland. Torquato TASSO added a stronger moral element to the form with his Jerusalem Delivered (1581). English poet Edmund Spenser used the form for a religious, moral, and nationalistic purpose in his dense poem The Faerie Queene (1596, unfinished).
Don Quixote (1605) by Miguel de cervantes was and still is lauded as the greatest prose romance, as well as the precursor to the modern novel, which often incorporates a romantic storyline. The domestic fiction, which took form in 18th-century England, often involved a romance between characters, as seen in the works of Samuel richardson and Henry Fielding. The Gothic tales of Matthew Lewis, Horace Walpole, and Ann Radcliffe introduced a supernatural element into the romance, and the Romantic movements in England, Germany, France, and Spain spread to the Americas and left an enduring imprint on literature to come. Today, the romance is a popular genre of the mass media market and comprises a significant segment of book sales around the world.
Works of Romance
Lewis, Matthew Gregory. The Monk: A Romance. Edited by Christopher Maclachlan. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Middle English Romances. Edited by Stephen Shepherd. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.
Seven Viking Romances. Edited by Hermann Palsson. New York: Penguin, 1986.
Works about Romance
Brackett, Virginia. Classic Love and Romance Literature: An Encyclopedia of Works, Characters, Authors, and Themes. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1999.
Gwara, Joseph, and E. Michael Gerli. Studies on the Spanish Sentimental Romance (1440-1550).
London: Tamesis Books, 1997. Keller, Hans-Erich. Romance Epic. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 1987.
Mussell, Kay, ed. Where’s Love Gone: Transformations in the Romance Genre. Los Angeles: Delta Productions, 1997.
Sommer, Doris. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
