Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The essays in this volume have charted the various transformations of romance, from its inception in late classical narrative, to its diverse manifestations in the twentieth century. They demonstrate with clarity the power of romance as a mode: its origins seem in a sense natural, preceding the term itself. Medieval romance may be seen as formative in that it establishes both the great matters of romance, especially that of Arthur, and its great motifs – quest, adventure, otherworld journey, love. Thence each age adds to and rewrites romance, making the genre its own and yet retaining those crucial structures. In the writing of Sidney and Spenser, epic romance finds its flowering; in Shakespeare's last plays, romance attains a dramatic height never again reached; in the eighteenth century, romance gains a parodic force and at the same time enters the genre of the novel, most notably as the Gothic; in the Romantic period, it is rewritten once again, shaping and shaped by an intellectual and artistic movement of peculiar force; in the fiction and poetry of the Victorian period, the images and structures of romance are refracted through a distinctive moral lens; and in the twentieth century, romance inspires a series of sub-genres – imperial romance, contemporary fantasy, science fiction, popular romance, as well as influencing and shaping modern and postmodern poetry and fiction. ... log in or subscribe to read full text