Where do romance novels come from? Some of you will have heard me go on about romance novels being a mirror of popular culture, so you’ll hear a bit more about that today.
I’m convinced that romance novels are the product of a long stream of vernacular literature (that’s popular fiction beginning in the middle ages: “vernacular” means that it was written down in the languages people actually spoke, not the Latin used for records, thus such literature is believed to be “of the people”) and that this strain of literature utilizes and mirrors contemporary concerns and beliefs. Popular fiction reflects (and explores) popular culture and popular concerns, but also picks up traits from the past. Let’s look at a couple of those traits.
1. Moral Certitude
In one sense, romance novels are the descendants of medieval morality plays. They are not unique in this: many expressions of popular culture (movies, plays) draw on the same cultural heritage. (As an aside, we’re talking about the cultural heritage of the United States, primarily that heritage drawn from western European sources and explored in English. This is the soup from which the romance novel is served up, for the romance novel in its current form is almost purely an American expression. This shapes the assumptions and ideas that will be found within romance novels, but we’ll get to that later.)
Medieval morality plays were public theatre, popular roughly from the 14th to 16th centuries. A morality play was usually allegorical, and featured characterizations of virtues and vices. The notion of Everyman, which every English Lit student knows, comes from morality plays. There were also mystery plays, which were not the same thing. Mystery plays were presented annually, with each guild in a town/city being responsible for a specific play in the entire cycle “Mystery” is a reference to the guild having a specific craft, or access to mysteries. Mystery plays were usually religious lessons. There’s a cycle from York that was performed annually on Corpus Christi Day – it’s sometimes called the cycle of Corpus Christi plays, as a result – that you can find in a good library. The Spicers’ Play from that cycle, for example, was performed by the Spicers’ Guild, and tells of the Annunciation and the Visitation to Mary. All of these kinds of entertainment were presented in vernacular languages, so they were popular culture in their time.
In a morality play or a romance, the good guys are rewarded and the bad guys are punished. Those who are confused of misguided are reformed. There is no middle ground: there is good and there is evil and there are no other options. There is a moral polarization in both kinds of story, and absolutely no room for moral ambiguity. This is the first legacy from the past.
2. Heroic Characterizations and Feats
You might think that romance novels would have tremendous similarity with the heroic tales told by troubadors in the middles ages, which are often called romances. We’ll call these chansons for clarity, although not all of them are technically chansons. The similarity between romance novels and chansons is in the heroic characterizations and the sense that the protagonists are larger than life. The dissimilarity is in the moral code presented. It is common in chansons, for example, for the hero to be beyond the law, as it is known, or perhaps answerable to a higher authority (love, maybe, honor, certainly) for which he may transgress societal conventions and mortals. The moral code presented in romance novels is reflective of our own times and our own notions of moral behavior – just as the actions in chansons could be argued to be representative of the moral code of the era in which they were composed. For example, adultery is often presented as acceptable in a chanson, especially if committed while in love, but this does not wash in a romance novel: we have different notions of marriage than medieval people must have, and therefore are less tolerant of adultery (assuming, of course, that chansons mirror their contemporary reality.)
3. Accessibility
The other trait that comes from the vernacular tradition is a need for romance novels to be accessible – as an expression of popular culture, they need to be accessible by the highest number of people possible. This is where the frequently expressed “grade 8 reading level” notion comes from, but in reality, it’s the accessibility of the ideas that’s key.
4. Fairy Tale Endings
The Happily Ever After (HEA) or optimistic ending so critical to the success of a romance novel comes from fairy tales.
5. Fairy Tale Story Arcs
Romance novels also have similarities to fairy tales, although fairy tales don’t always show the same moral polarization. Fairy tales don’t always focus on a romantic relationship, and seldom explore its development. (Of course, the heroine want to marry the prince. He’s an icon, not a person, and something to be won.) Sometimes, trickery is used to win in fairy tales, or the endings are ambiguous, or exalted members of society are mocked – these elements are more similar to medieval stories called fabliaux (edgy, earthy fun fables)
There are two fairy tales, though, which are prevalent as story arcs in romance novels. These are (perhaps predictably) two stories in which a female protagonist is central. The first is Cinderella and the second is Beauty and the Beast.
Now, let’s put this into the context of our own times before we go further. I think that the romance novel as we popularly recognize it is rooted in the middle of the twentieth century. After WWII, Harlequin/Mills & Boon was the biggest publisher of these books, so dominating the market that the company name became synonymous with “romance novel”. These books, by and large, reflected key elements of the Cinderella story: the heroine was virginal, innocent in other ways, sweet, kind and good. She was not an active protagonist – her goodness was what drew good fortune her way. The hero was rich, handsome, aloof, mysterious, passionate, and both his characterization and his motivation were shadowy. The pair might spend little time together in the story itself. The book would be told from the point of view of the heroine, in third person, in linear chronology, and the height of sexual expression might be a kiss at the end of the book. The relationship always culminated in marriage. These books were enormously popular and remain so in many world markets.
But, then came the sixties, and big social changes in the U.S. The women’s lib movement offered a different notion of the role of women in society, and different ideas of appropriate behaviour. This is when the focus of the genre moved to America, which remains the biggest market for romance novels. The core story also shifted, reflecting these social changes: Beauty and the Beast became the foundation story arc, an apt choice as it is one of the oldest stories with an active female protagonist. After the sixties, a passive woman became perceived as weak in American culture, while an assertive woman was seen to be heroic. This is critical change. Also, the introduction of reliable birth control in the Pill meant that women could think of their sexuality as separate from their fertility – you could have sex without any intention of having children, and ensure that you didn’t have children as a result. That was a big change.
The magnitude of this is revealed in the fact that most of the new romances of this new flavor were historicals. We needed te distance of time, the imposition of an histroical setting, to accept a woman as an agent of her own destiny. These books appeared in the 1970’s, and some of the earliest were written by Kathleen Woodiwiss. The market exploded as women responded to this new kind of book – obviously romances found a resonance with popular culture, and were meaningful to many women. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that contemporary settings became more common and more successful than historicals.
So, what were the characteristics of these new kinds of romances? Most importantly, the heroine was active, not passive. She shaped not only her own destiny but impacted that of the hero, and changed both for the better. She was not necessarily virginal or even monogamous – even in sex scenes, she was an active participant. She was not necessarily good or sweet: she might be opinionated or outspoken. “Feisty” became the adjective of choice for these heroines. They were filled with a passion for life and a conviction of their own ideas that reflected our sense of how women should be. The heroes, too, changed: they remained sexy and passionate, might well be handsome, but often had flaws. The notion developed – much as perhaps it did in popular culture – that marriage was not just a partnership of equals, but a joining of two halves into one whole, a union more than the sum of its parts. The hero and heroine complemented each other, perhaps even fulfilled each other’s destiny.
As we became more comfortable with the idea of these strong women, the stories moved ino contemporary settings, and took contemporary issues. The genre kept moving, reflecting our ideas of partnership and family and sex. Romance novels also relfect our changing notions of the role of women in society. We see this in how these two core stories find different levels of acceptance in different markets. Older readers often find the Cinderella stories more appealing, while younger readers often prefer the Beauty and the Beast stories. Beyond that, the Beauty and the Beast stories find their greatest resonance in the U.S., followed by European countries in greater or lesser degrees. It stands to reason that in a traditional and/or patriarchal society, women might not find the Beauty and the Beast stories plausible, because a heroine with “agency” would not reflect their own reality. In some times and some places, some ideas are not even imaginable.
And popular fiction has to reflect popular culture to be relevant. We’re going to keep returning to that one…