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Romance (genre)

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{{literature}} As a literary genre, '''romance''' refers to a style of heroic prose and verse narrative current in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

Characteristics of the romance
The term was coined to distinguish popular material in the Vernacular literature vernacular (at first the Romance languages French language French, Portuguese Language Portuguese and Spanish language Spanish, later German language German, English language English and others) from scholarly and ecclesiastical literature in Latin. The boundaries between the romance and the chansons de geste of the troubadours was somewhat fluid. In general, the chansons were the property of professional performers, while the romance was associated more with amateurs and private readers. Nevertheless, a professional poet-performer like Chrétien de Troyes could turn his hand to composing romances. The distinction between an early verse romance and a chanson de geste is often difficult, and perhaps unnecessary, to make. Unlike the novel (''nouvelle romaine'' or "new romance") and like the chansons de geste, the romance dealt with traditional themes, above all three thematic cycles of tales, assembled in imagination at a late date as the Matter of Rome (actually centered on the life and deeds of Alexander the Great), the Matter of France (Charlemagne and Roland, his principal paladin) and the Matter of Britain (the lives and deeds of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (Camelot) Round Table, within which was incorporated the quest for Holy Grail). The Acritic songs (dealing with Digenis Acritas and his fellow frontiersmen) resemble much the ''chanson de geste'', though they developed simultaneously but separately. A related tradition existed in Northern Europe, and comes down to us in the form of epics, such as ''Beowulf'' and the ''Nibelungenlied''. However, the richest set of Germanic Romantic literature comes from Scandinavia in the form of the Fornaldarsagas. The setting is Scandinavia, but occasionally it moves temporarily to more distant and exotic locations. There are also very often mythological elements, such as Norse god gods, Norse dwarf dwarves, Elf elves, European dragon dragons, jotun giants and magic swords. The heroes often embark on dangerous quests where they fight the forces of evil, dragons, witchkings, barrow-wights, and rescue fair maidens. Image:Fornalder, peter nicolai arbo.jpg thumb|left|300px|'''Fornalder''' (''times past''), painting by [[Peter Nicolai Arbo]] Many or most of the sagas are based on distant historic events and this is evident in cases where there are corroborating sources, such as ''Göngu-Hrólfs saga'', ''Ragnar Lodbrok Ragnars saga loðbrókar'', ''Yngvars saga víðförla'' and ''Volsunga saga Völsunga saga''. In the case of ''Hervarar saga'' the names in the Goths Gothic setting indicate a historic basis, and the latter parts of the saga are still used as a historic source for Swedish history. They often contain very old Germanic matter, such as the ''Hervarar saga'' and the ''Völsunga saga'' which contains poetry about Sigurd that did not find its way into the ''Poetic Edda'' and which would otherwise have been lost. Other sagas deal with heroes such as Ragnar Lodbrok, Starkad, Orvar-Odd, Hagbard and Signy. In the later medieval and Renaissance period, the important European literary trend was to fantastic fiction. Exemplary work, such as the English ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' by Sir Thomas Malory (c.1408–1471), and the Spanish ''Amadis de Gaula'' (1508), spawned many imitators, and the genre was popularly well-received, producing such masterpiece of renaissance poetry as Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso and Torquato Tasso's ''Gerusalemme Liberata'' and other 16th century literary works in the romance genre. But in the judgement of many learned readers of the time, the romance was poor literature, inspiring only broken-down ageing and provincial persons such as Don Quixote, knight of isolated province La Mancha. ''Hudibras'' also lampoons the faded conventions of chivalrous romance. Romances had been deemed harmful distractions from more substantive or moral works from the high Middle Ages, in works of piety, but by 1600 most readers would agree. Many medieval romances recount the marvelous adventures of a chivalrous, heroic knight, often of super-human ability, who, abiding chivalry's strict codes of honour and demeanour, fights and defeats monsters and giants, thereby winning favour with a beautiful but fickle princess. The story of the medieval romance focuses not upon love and sentiment, but upon adventure novel adventure; some would call contemporary comic books and sci-fi the genre's successors. Romancers wrote many of their stories in three, thematic cycles: (i) the Arthurian (the lives and deeds of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table); (ii) the Carlovingian (the lives and deeds of Charlemagne, and Roland, his principal paladin); and, (iii) the Alexandrian (the life and deeds of Alexander the Great). In the later medieval and Renaissance period, the important European literary trend was to fantastic fiction. Exemplary work, such as the English ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' (c.1649), by Sir Thomas Malory (c.1408–1471), and the Spanish ''Amadís of Gaul'' (1508), spawned many imitators, and the genre was popularly well-received. Originally, this literature was written in Old English and Provençal, later, in French and German—the notable works being ''King Horn'', Havelok the Dane; and Amis and Amiloun; later romances were written as prose, e.g. ''Le Morte d'Arthur''. Don Quixote (1605, 1615), by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616), is a satirical story of an elderly country gentleman, living in La Mancha province, crazed by reading chivalric romances.

Relationship to modern 'romantic fiction'
In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there is a marked tendency to emphasize themes of courtly love, such as faithfulness in adversity. From ''ca.'' 1800 the connotations of "romance" moved from fantastic and eerie, somewhat Gothic literature Gothic adventure narratives of novelists like Anne Radcliffe's ''The Sicilian Romance'' (1790) or ''The Romance of the Forest'' (1791) with erotic content to novels centered on the episodic development of a courtship that ends in marriage. With a female protagonist, during the rise of Romanticism the depiction of the course of such a courtship within contemporary conventions of realism (arts) realism, the female equivalent of the "Bildungsroman novel of education", informs much Romantic fiction. The starting point of the fornaldarsagas' influence on the creation of the Fantasy genre is the publication, in 1825, of the most famous Swedish literary work ''Frithjof's saga'', which was based on the ''Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna'', and it became an instant success in England and Germany. It is said to have been translated twenty-two times into English, twenty times into German, and once at least into every European language, including modern Icelandic in 1866. Their influence on authors, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, William Morris and Poul Anderson and on the subsequent modern fantasy genre is considerable, and can perhaps not be overstated. Modern usage of Romance novel denotes a particular erotic style in a highly conventionalized modern genre, and its sub-genres in historical settings, the well-named "Bodice Bodice rippers" produced by teams of authors often writing under joint pseudonyms.

Northrop Frye's definition
The critic Northrop Frye in ''Anatomy of Criticism'' (1957) separated some essentials of romance from the Medieval historical vehicles we identify it with, and usefully distinguished Romance as a mode that may be detected as a theme or atmosphere in other fictions. Expanding Aristotle's ''Poetics'', Frye classified fictions by the power of the hero's actions, which may be greater than ours, or less, or roughly of the same degree. Thus if the hero is superior in ''kind'' to men, the action is a myth. If the hero is superior in ''degree'' to others and to his environment, the mode is that of Romance, where the actions are marvellous, but the hero is human. "The hero of romance moves in a world in which the ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended: prodigies of courage and endurance, unnatural to us, are natural to him, and enchanted weapons, talking animals, terrifying ogres and witches, and talismans of miraculous power violate no rule of probability... Romance divides into two main forms: a secular form dealing with chivalry and knight-errantry, and a religious form devoted to hagiography legends of saints. Both lean heavily on miraculous violations of natural law for their interest as stories." (Frye pp 33-34) In Romance, the action is never far removed from the forest, and the hero's isolation or death "has the effect of a spirit passing out of nature" Frye perceives, "and evokes a mood best described as elegy elegaic" There is a sense of fateful inevitability, but the sense of pity and fear that Tragedy produces, Romance absorbs into emotions that produce pleasure. "It turns fear at a distance, or terror, into the adventurous; fear at contact, or horror, into the marvellous, and fear without an object, or dread (''Angst'') into a pensive melancholy." Pity, Frye finds rendered by Romance into the theme of rescue and a languid charmed tenderness. Medieval examples: *''Romance of the Rose'' *''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' *''Le Morte D'Arthur'' - Sir Thomas Malory *''Amadis de Gaula''- João Lobeira (most likely; see the link to Lobeira's page for more information) Romance as a fictive mode: *''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' *''Odyssey'': Odysseus and Circe episode *''The Tempest'' Category:Literary genres it:Romanzo pl:Romans (gatunek literacki) sv:Riddarroman

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