This is a summary of “Reading Romantic Fiction”, Chapter 4 of Joanne Hollows’ Feminism Femininity and Popular Culture.
I needed a short reading on romance fiction that required no background knowledge of cultural studies or feminist theory for my students in ethics and literature, and this fit the bill.
Cultural studies created a space in which romance fiction could be analyzed. Cites Tania Modleski’s Loving with a Vengeance” Mass Produced Fantasies for Women (first published in 1982, but revised edition out in 2007).
Hollows:
New cultural studies theories stopped equating culture with texts and started looking at relationship between texts and readers.
A difficulty with the study of romance fiction is the wide variety of texts that might be included.
Hollows uses a definition, from Jean Radford, a) the central narrative concerns a love relationship; b) the central relationship is between a hero and heroine; c) most romances have a female protagonist; and d) there is a close identification between reader and protagonist (Radford 1986,8).
Three problems with this definition:
1. Heterosexist, rules out m/m, f/f, trans, bi, etc.
2. Implies invidious distinction between romance fiction and literary fiction
3. Implies the question of whether something is “romantic” is defined purely by the text, leaving no room for readers’ interpretations — Hollows makes the interesting point that for readers highly sensitized to and knowledgeable about romance, fiction with romantic elements can be read as romance
Critiques of romance fiction:
It is “common sense” that romance is “escapist”, “formulaic”, “trivial”
One source of this is 19th century criticism of mass culture (Frankfurt School, for example)
Modes of industrial production applied to culture, producing standardized, formulaic mass culture which serves capitalism
Note how mass culture is figured as feminine in these critiques: it is emotional, passive, sentimental, easy addicting pleasure
And contrasted with modernist high art — masculine transcendent achievement, heroic, singular
From this Marxist perspective, mass culture transforms proletariat form a potentially potent force for revolution into docile apologists for capitalism
Very similar critique from feminists, but instead of capitalism, target is patriarchy
The “housewife” is a key figure in 1970s and 1980s feminist writing on romance fiction (and soap operas)
Stereotyped, cast as passive, dependent, childish, addicted
Must see feminist critique of romance fiction as part of wider critique of romantic love per se
Love as an ideology that perpetuates patriarchy. In the same way that capitalism makes the proletariat believe it serves their interests, patriarchy makes women believe it serves theirs. In the case of patriarchy, the ideology is romantic love.
Here’s a classic argument from Sulamith Firestone:
Romantic love is pathological, unequal:
1. love becomes a woman’s vocation, diverting her energies from other pursuits.
2. sense of identity and self-esteem depends on a man
3. makes women economically dependent on men, leaving women open to abuse.
4. centrally implicated in the reproduction of women’s oppression as a class, b/c of implication in reproducing the family structure
Problems with these feminist critiques of romance:
1. Treats romance fiction as a monolith
2. Assumes “hypodermic syringe” model of media effects: readers passively accept, cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality
3. Mistakes the thing on the page for the experience itself: need to know how women read it
4. Accepts critical double standard. that anything figured “feminine” (foe example, the emotions) is less valuable than what is figured as masculine. Another example is that in early feminist critiques, romance was associated with the feminine, but sexuality was associated with the masculine.
Foucault was the game changer, of course. After Foucault, we stopped seeing sexuality (or indeed the body itself) as a natural, pre-cultural force which can either be “expressed” or “repressed”
The idea that romance is a political ideology that distorts “natural” sexuality is abandoned, paving the way for more situated, historical, geographical, ethnographic critiques.
Tania Modleski: Hollows appreciates the way Modleski treats romance as worthy of serious analysis, as well as her focus on readers and why they read. She challenges the stereotype of the passive reader, recognizing that women read romance to cope with patriarchy (for example, by “bringing the hero to his knees”, romance is revenge fantasy).
However, Modeleski’s analysis suffers from its “one size fits all”, simplistic psychology, and tendency to obliterate differences between readers, and recreates a division between enlightened feminists and romance readers.
Janice Radway (Reading the Romance 1987): Radway also focused on readers, expanding her analysis to the practice of reading and what it means to romance readers. She did ethnographic research, (open ended interviews, for example) and explored the complex cultural relations and exchanges between the organization of the publishing industry, the texts produced, and the practices of readers.
Hollows points to an ambivalence throughout Radway’s book, in that on the one hand she wants to sympathetically reconstruct the readers’ interpretations based on their world-views, but at the same time subjugates their world view to her own, superior one, which shares many assumptions of the feminist views we’ve already looked at. For example, she constantly undercuts the pleasure that the readers gain from their reading by calling it ‘vicarious’, even though they experience it as ‘real’.
Radway ends up agreeing in the end with Modleski on the problematic “escapist” nature of romance fiction, although Radway does explore different meanings of escape (reading as a literal escape -”don’t bug Mommy, She’s reading”, and as a figurative meeting of desires which patriarchy invites but does not satisfy [for example, the idea that romantic love is a way of being taken care of, when in actuality, women bear unequal burdens of care in relationships])
For Radway, the texts reproduce patriarchy, but the practice of reading can be an act of rebellion. But she replicates the division between the “us-feminists” and the “them-readers”, blurs lines between readers, and infantilizes readers.
Hollows argues that romance critics have missed the importance of pleasure, sexual and otherwise, that romance readers enjoy. The moralizing of romance critics leads them to be suspicious of pleasure in the midst of injustice. But utopian dreams can be, not just escapist outs, but active imaginings of other possible worlds, dreams of change, and dreams of difference.
One LOL moment I had reading Hollows was her singling out lesbian readers’ relationship to traditional romance and the growth of lesbian romance as areas to be investigated. I guess nobody could predict in 2000 the growth of m/m.
Hollows concludes that:
Women and men are not passive recipients of an ideology of romance, instead romance narratives are a resource they draw upon in making sense of the emotional and social world. An acknowledgement of the importance of romance in everyday life makes it crucial to move beyond condemning romance narratives, to understand their diversity, their uses and how they might be subject to transformation.
We’ll read a romance novel next week, and I’ll use that time to update students a bit on where romance scholarship is today.
I hesitate to say much about my students’ reaction to this article without their express permission, but I’ll note that I teach at a state university in a rural, fairly poor state. There was, on the one hand, strong negative reaction to the perceived elitism of both kinds of leftist critiques of romance fiction, while at the same time almost complete agreement with the upshot of those critiques: that romance is dreck. Exploring the tension there made for a great discussion.
Related posts:
- If Romance Novels are Neither High Culture nor Pop Culture, What the Hell Are They? In which the dismissal of romance gets personal. After the Popular Culture Association meeting in April, I approached editors for...
- Notes on An Aesthetics of Junk Fiction (part 3 of 3) A book discussion of John Roberts’ An Aesthetics of Junk Fiction (Athens, GA; University of Georgia Press), 1990. Click here...
- Interview With A Croatian Feminist, Anarchist, Speculative Fiction Writer, and Avid Genre Fiction Reader Milena Benini, a regular reader of this blog, won my last contest. When I realized I had to send her...
- Polyamory, Menage, Erotic Romance, and Culture In this post, the word “menage” refers to a sexual activity involving three people, not primarily to a long...
- My Ethics and Fiction Class (and how romance reading has changed it) Ok, kids. Which one of these things is not like the other? REQUIRED TEXTS: Stephen K. George, Editor, Ethics, Literature,...
- Two JR Ward Papers at the Pop Culture Association Conference This was an 8:00am session at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Meeting (April 2009) with 4 papers, 2...
#1 by Magdalen on November 27, 2009 - 8:59 am
Quote
Just a guess, but I think the sense of identification between the reader and the heroine is a convenient myth. Romance fiction is escapist, by which I mean it allows the reader to leave behind the mundane (the toilet that needs fixing, the laundry, etc.) and go someplace else. I don’t think all readers need to think they are (or could be, or want to be) the heroine.
But one aspect of the popular romance novel that does work very well is the sense we get of how the hero feels. Because of the typical third-person narrative and shifting POV, we know a lot more about what the hero is experiencing of the relationship. For some readers, that may be the fantasy that fuels the reading experience. Men in our everyday lives may love us just as much, but say/think it a lot less.
Which could explain the popularity of m/m romances — two heroes! Two male perspectives! These books may still only be a niche genre, but I can see the appeal of reading about two men, each falling in love. The academics may interpret that as the reader dealing with the patriarchy by identifying as a male protagonist, but I think it’s just the escapist pleasure of reading about two men (Men!) falling in love, thinking about the beloved, thinking about feelings, etc.
#2 by Laura Vivanco on November 27, 2009 - 10:50 am
Quote
This, though, is a relatively recent development. If you look back at earlier romances, you’ll find that a lot of them don’t give the hero’s point of view. I’m not sure exactly when the change took place, but much of the criticism dating from the 1980s is based on readings of romances in which the hero’s POV isn’t given. He’s therefore often portrayed as a rather mysterious character whose emotions (other than his inexplicable anger or distrust etc of her) are unknown to the heroine. In such novels the reader knows that the hero’s contradictory behaviour must result from his love for the heroine, but the heroine doesn’t know that. She only finds it out at the end of the novel.
#3 by dick on November 27, 2009 - 11:19 am
Quote
Isn’t the point of any fiction to bring one to identify with or strive to understand the protagonist? Whether the protagonist is male or female makes little difference; the reader is asked to join her self with the protagonist, to experience what the protagonist experiences, whether it’s the experience of a Hamlet or an Elizabeth Bennett. Romance fiction differs from other fictions in that it asks the reader to identify with a couple, to participate vicariously in a relationship in which both the male and female protagonist’s experiences are more completely known than is usual; and, of course, it differs in providing assurance that all will end well. Does that assurance make romance fiction escapist? Probably.
I can’t convince myself that romance fiction lends itself to critical attention of the academic kind, except in regard to things critiquable in any fiction, such as plot, characterization, and so on. Most of the ones I’ve read deal with cultural impact or with incidentals within particular stories, incidentals which have little to do with the intent of the story or the story’s author in telling it.
#4 by AQ on November 27, 2009 - 11:42 am
Quote
Are there any texts that have been created say after 2000 on the subject matter? Not revised but actually created. I ask because I feel like the “romance” genre as opposed to just romantic fiction has changed well a lot since the 80s. As has culture for that matter.
Now admittedly my feelings might not hold up to scrutiny but I’m wondering how an analysis from the late 80s would compare to an analysis created in the 00s and whether or not a researcher not versed in all that is the “romance” genre would even see the niches such as m/m romance since it’s still mostly digital niche as opposed to the mainstream print marketplace. And then how they would compare the novels written for the female hetrosexual market vs. male homosexual market and how the two overlap.
Thank you for the post, Jessica. Insightful and has given my mind lots of tangents to follow.
#5 by AQ on November 27, 2009 - 11:59 am
Quote
@Magdalen:
I’ve often wondered if the appeal of m/m romance to the female hetrosexual audience is because there’s no ‘the heroine must’ be this or can’t act like this. With two male characters there would seem to be no limits compared to those typically placed on the heroine on where an author or a reader could go with the characters.
It’s interesting to note that my limited perception is that the limits I see in today’s releases didn’t exist when the romances were the coming of age stories for heroines. Sometimes — lately — I’m almost left feeling that the purpose of the story is to find a heroine who is “good enough” for the hero which just goes to show how skewed my reading choices have been lately or how I need to change my own cultural preconceptions. Must do better.
As far as the hero POV is concerned, although I enjoy it and generally have lots of fun with it, I always felt that it’s a sanitized male pov created for the female experience/enjoyment.
I read somewhere that Jennifer Crusie asked a male author about what men think about during sex and when he finally gave a response, her response was more or less I can’t write that.
Which just struck me as funny and made me laugh.
Pingback: Bev's Books » Blog Archive » The old “placeholder heroine” myth
#6 by BevBB on November 27, 2009 - 2:28 pm
Quote
Personally, I don’t believe it’s the couple per se that distinguishes romance but The Relationship itself. Now, one could argue that it’s one and the same but long observation of simply listening to discussion online about the romance plot vs. the other plots in books tells me it’s not. The romance plot is always The Relationship one. It’s always kept distinct from the others, even when we’re talking about stories in other genres – on forums of other genres.
They, meaning other genre readers, make that distinction. Not just us romance readers. So, they’re not simply talking about two people. They’re talking about a plot construct called The Relationship, separate, distinct, basically sacred while at the same time reviled from all others. Kind of like “Ewww, don’t let the peas touch the tators.”
People either love The Relationship plot or they hate it. Crave it or run from it. This was something that was first driven home to me back when I was writing fan fiction and nothing that I’ve learned since within the romance community has ever contradicted it.
And therein lies the connundrum of the modern romance genre itself.
Amen. And, oh, god but does this entire post and thread takes me back. So much so that instead of trying to comment on it and go on too long I just posted something I’d already, ironically, been working on: The old “placeholder heroine” myth
#7 by Ann Somerville on November 27, 2009 - 3:33 pm
Quote
“Which could explain the popularity of m/m romances — two heroes! Two male perspectives!”
and
“With two male characters there would seem to be no limits compared to those typically placed on the heroine on where an author or a reader could go with the characters.”
Are two very strong reasons why I love to read and write m/m. I used to love het but now I squirm at the slightest hint that the heroines are behaving in any kind of stereotyped way – even though I lead a pretty stereotyped heterosexual life myself. I’m sure it’s possible to write m/f without the boundaries for the woman society imposes but I’ve yet to be convinced such stories exist in any numbers.
#8 by Magdalen on November 27, 2009 - 5:55 pm
Quote
I recently re-read some contemporary series romances by Glenda Sanders for a guest blog post at Monkey Bear Reviews. I was struck by Daddy Darling (1989) and Island Nights (1990) as exemplars of two very different aspects of romance fiction.
In Daddy Darling, the couple love each other and have great sex from page 1, so those parts of the relationship have been established already. What remains is the effort to build a life together as a couple, as a family. Most of the resistance is from the hero, so it’s his backstory that gets the most reflection. Ultimately, it’s not (for me) a very emotional book, but it’s clearly a romance novel and not, say, chick-lit.
In Island Nights, I cry (every single time) at the ending. I think I’ve figured out why. The couple haven’t yet built a relationship or future together, but they both want to be remembered if they have to live apart. It’s an act of generosity — both to give up the beloved, but also to want the beloved to know he/she was loved. And in classic “show, don’t tell” scenes, Sanders has both protagonists giving each other these bittersweet gifts.
Daddy Darling would not have worked without the hero’s POV. If he had just shown up in the end and said, “Okay, I’m in,” we wouldn’t have believed him. Having seen him come to terms with his dilemma, though, his actions are credible. In Island Nights, I think those final scenes would have worked just as well without the hero’s POV because the actions of the characters told us all we needed to know. (I want to be scrupulously honest: I cry at the heroine’s gift to the hero in Island Nights. But I *think* I would cry at a similar gesture by a hero to a heroine.)
So I don’t agree that without the hero’s POV or internal monologue we have no clue as to what he’s feeling. [Insert cliche about actions speaking louder, etc., here.]
The other problem I have with these academic analyses of romances is their failure to explain the reader’s vicarious emotional response to the novel There’s something about reading books like Island Nights that is almost emotional vampirism. (I call them “emo porn.”) I feed off the vicarious thrill of feeling that much emotion uncontaminated by the minutiae of a prosaic life or endangered by the risk that it won’t all work out. I think we got that from early romance novels by Kathleen Woodiwiss and LaVyrle Spencer, so I don’t think the hero’s POV is a necessary component.
Other things occur to me: the oral nature of reading romances (“feeding the hungry heart,” as well as the notion of reading them one right after another, like candy or potato chips), and the role of the reader’s own difficult emotional relationships (from childhood, for example) which can independent of education, socioeconomic origins, etc., thus explaining in part why some smart, educated women read them. But I’ll stop there.
#9 by AQ on November 27, 2009 - 5:59 pm
Quote
@BevBB:
Okay, BevBB, I’ve “heard” of the placeholder myth before and I read your pingback post but I’m still confused.
What exactly is the placeholder heroine and is it something that only exists in romantic fiction?
Color me confused.
BTW: That Kinsale quote is fraked. Maybe I’d need to read the entire essay but I don’t understand what that paragraph is trying to convey. I get little niggles but the language use is too muddled for me.
Oh, and I rather like your “The Relationship” plot construct.
#10 by AQ on November 27, 2009 - 6:12 pm
Quote
@Magdalen:
Overall I like your thoughts but what struck me about it was this feeling that there was a need to justify reading a romance. Maybe I’m reading too much into the final paragraph or I’m much too conscious of the comment that:
romance is dreck
But why must we prove that romance has value or that smart women read it. Why can’t we ask the other side to prove that it doesn’t and simply concentrate the actual analysis of what we’re attempting to discover without qualifying or backstepping?
I’ve been guilty of it myself and so I thought I’d ask the question out loud.
#11 by BevBB on November 27, 2009 - 8:40 pm
Quote
That’s just it. That particular quote is the clearest definition of the placeholder heroine that I could find in that particular essay (and pretty much the standard type that used to always be given) which just shows an example of the overall problem I’m talking about in my post. So, don’t expect me to explain it, at least not in terms of just romances. I meant every word of that post. I never could quite make heads or tales of what it was they were actually going on about – identifying with the heroine but being the hero or was that the other way around? See, I still don’t know which way is up – until I made the connection to the first person narrator in general.
And then I went, well, duh. Of course we see out of the eyes of whomever is narrating the story and that person doesn’t necessarily have to be the actual protagonist of the story. That has nothing to do with their gender or romantic relationship. It could, however, have to do with their relative relationship within the plot, which is a completely different kettle of fish, because that is defined by the story being told regardless of genre.
Thank you. I do try to keep things simple most of the time. Doesn’t hurt when certain patterns of behavior are repeated right in front of one’s face over and over through the years, though. Eventually they’re difficult to ignore.
#12 by Magdalen on November 27, 2009 - 9:08 pm
Quote
@AQ: Well, I don’t personally feel like I have to justify romance, and certainly not to this crowd! But I know I occasionally want to remind people (people who think romance is dreck, for example, or those who think only “certain” people read romances — and that unpacks to some cliche along the lines of a Wal*Mart shopper in a tube top & shorts) that romance fiction covers a lot of territory, with genres and sub-genres, long and short formats, and a lot of different styles of writing. Pretty much all we can agree about a romance novel is that there’s more than one person in the relationship (!) and there’s an HEA.
The principal reason I would even mention that the educational and socio-economic range of romance readers is to reinforce the idea that it’s a big tent and all romance readers are welcome. I’ve not done any of the academic study that Laura Vivanco, Jessica and others have done, but as a non-academic, I worry a little that any theory of who reads romances, and why they read them, will miss some other group of us who are different and read romances for entirely other reasons.
Which is to say, I doubt there’s a “unified field theory” of romance fiction!
#13 by AQ on November 27, 2009 - 9:16 pm
Quote
Kinsale quote from BevBB site:
A couple of word changes just to shake up the mix:
In the romance it is the “male lead” who carries the book. Within the dynamics of reading a romance, the female reader is the “male lead”, and also the “female lead” (the placeholder heroine). The reader very seldom is the “female lead” in the sense meant by the term “reader identification.” There is always an element of analytical distance.
In the romance it is the “protagonist” who carries the book. Within the dynamics of reading a romance, the female reader is the “protagonist”, and also the “primary point of view character” (the placeholder heroine). The reader very seldom is the “primary point of view character” in the sense meant by the term “reader identification.” There is always an element of analytical distance.
Well, maybe… I don’t know…
Despite the definition it kind of feels like placeholder heroine is a term similar to bodice ripper. It’s meant to put the reader of romantic fiction into a position of defense.
When I think in general terms of fiction, I place myself in the hands of the narrator or the point of view character(s) and I experience the world with what they give me be it intellectual ponderings or impressions of sights, sounds, touch, etc. However they view the world is how I get to see the world. And I typically wonder what makes the protagonist and the secondary characters tick, what their background is, whether or not I’d make the same type of choices, etc.
I don’t understand how that sensation or experience would be any different just because it’s part of a relationship plot unless I got obsessive about the world created or one of the characters. But again getting obsessive about characters or worlds isn’t something that’s limited to romantic fiction.
Still confused but find it an interesting line of inquiry.
#14 by AQ on November 27, 2009 - 9:24 pm
Quote
@Magdalen:
Sorry, my bad. My mind was too focused on Jessica’s post or rather the negativity found in the critiques she listed that when I came to
it took me to place you didn’t mean me to go. A place I find myself going more than I’d like when discussing romance My bad. Sorry.
—-
Now back to your original post. I keep re-reading the upper back so there’s something there. But I love this:
**ETA***
I often wonder what it would take to wrap one’s self around the entire “romance” genre excluding romantic fiction. I’m sure it would be a lifetime of work.
#15 by BevBB on November 27, 2009 - 10:12 pm
Quote
@AQ:
Yeah, and it gets even more confusing if and when one stops thinking of romances as only read by women and wonders what happens with the placeholder heroine business when a man is reading them… (rolling eyes)
#16 by AQ on November 27, 2009 - 10:19 pm
Quote
@BevBB:
LMAO. Didn’t I read somewhere that male readers account for something like 20% and what happens when we start using omni-sexual characters?
You made my night!!!
#17 by Sherry Thomas on November 28, 2009 - 2:05 am
Quote
Huh?
The brain, it shuts down immediately before academic analysis.
Pingback: Bev's Books » Blog Archive » Placeholders & the dual perspective
#18 by Magdalen on November 28, 2009 - 10:38 am
Quote
@AQ: Absolutely no need to apologize — I understand completely the ambivalence around “defending” romance fiction. One wants to make clear to the non-romance reader how much we enjoy it, believe in it, and support it, and also how strongly we feel it has merit. On the other hand, if we’re defending it, does that mean we admit that it needs defending?
I wonder if there will ever be a moment that romance writing will gain that extra luster that pulp fiction or westerns now enjoy. And if it doesn’t, why not? Prolific authors, pseudonymous authors revealed to have “respectable” careers, and even academic analysis — what’s the magic ingredient that’s missing? Is it really a gender issue — by which I mean that because romance novels are thought to be read by women, that removes any chance that the (still male-dominated?) lit-crit crowd won’t ever approve?
I don’t know. One of the great things about being in the vast number of “smart, educated women” who read romances, is that I’m smart enough to know that I’m happy I have great romances to read. I’m not especially unhappy that romances are still denigrated by so many other “smart, educated” people because I do believe we can enjoy what we enjoy without needing to defend or explain that enjoyment. So I really only get annoyed (not at you, AQ!) when people’s assumptions about romance fiction include that cliche about who reads them, and somehow that either denigrates me, or denies me entirely! And smart, educated men who read romances? I’m amazed they don’t disappear in a puff of ontological dust as “impossible beings.”
#19 by AQ on November 28, 2009 - 10:45 am
Quote
@Magdalen:
You can hate me *** ETA or rather get annoyed with me***! LOL But you have to argue with me anyway. See I’m mean and contrary!
#20 by dick on November 28, 2009 - 11:20 am
Quote
I’m one of those males who read romance, and I am, by most estimates, smart and educated. I’m also a retired academic who began reading romance almost by accident. I’ve tried a few times to come up with an “academic” approach to the genre and gave up, because none of the tried and true approaches works very well, in my estimation. Romance fiction simply doesn’t have “deeper” meanings to reward analysis; close reading tells us little more than that the author has or does not have an acceptable style–and even if did, the HEA makes deeper meanings pointless. About the only thing romance fiction requires of a reader is to enjoy a story, well told. And the added fillip is the reader is assured that the story will end well despite everything that precedes the ending.
#21 by AQ on November 28, 2009 - 11:53 am
Quote
@dick:
Ahh, come on, I think you’re looking at the wrong stuff.
Deeper meaning. How about looking at what a romance novel says about the culture in which it is created and consumed? What tropes and character motifs are seeing in the trends and how/why do they resonate with readership? How can we apply those components to cultural whispers we have about gender, class, ethnicity, age? How does an author’s placement in that culture affect what’s found in the book? Does it? What about reader resonance? Does cultural placement make a difference?
For me it’s NOT the individual books that provide the best insight but rather the trends we see once we start grouping and parsing. How the character and plot arcs support the cultural framework, and that typical characters don’t waiver outside of the prescribed framework. For characters that step outside the box, are these books still considered romances? And so on.
Not a clue as how to interrupt what I see or even how to measure it accurately. But I, as a non-academia person, knows it exists and I find looking for the patterns intriguing. They are there. Perhaps not what you were hoping to examine but it is a different avenue to use as a starting point approach and who knows where it will lead.
That said: Jennifer Crusie’s books are ones that I’d say off the top of my head lead themselves toward the academic approach of looking for “deeper meanings.” I’m sure there are other romance novels/novelists who also fit the bill but there’s one and where there’s one there’s probably more.
HEA do not make deeper meanings pointless. They just require us to look for the deeper meaning through other means but the ending isn’t the end all be all.
Don’t blame the genre for the limitations of the criteria and the viewing/filtering lens.
#22 by Laura Vivanco on November 28, 2009 - 4:17 pm
Quote
Dick, I’ve debated this with you quite a few times over at AAR, but I’m still unsure which “tried and true” approaches you’ve attempted to use. Close reading has been a very fruitful approach for me. My impression is that different IASPR members are probably trying out quite a few different methods, and we’re finding that they do work well for us.
You say that “the HEA makes deeper meanings pointless” but that makes as much sense to me as saying that in tragedy “the death of the protagonist makes deeper meanings pointless.”
I think one of the big differences between studying popular texts such as romance, and studying books in an established canon, is that we don’t yet know which (if any) of the popular texts will have enduring appeal. And there are so many of them that we have to sift through them in order to find the ones which will reward close analysis. Other, older, groups of texts have already been sifted for us (by time and/or by previous generations of academics), so because the less rewarding texts have already been discarded, it can be easy to get the feeling that those groups of texts were almost all good/rewarding/intellectually challenging. That said, some academics are no doubt at work on those discarded books/play/poems, reassessing them and finding some merit or interest in some of them, too.
#23 by Jessica on November 28, 2009 - 8:06 pm
Quote
To be fair, Hollows does cite research as recent as 1997, namely in formulating her critique of the 1980s scholarship. I just didn’t communicate that. Here’s a link to the page on recent romance scholarship, which I think can fairly be called a “boom”. on the wonderful romance Wiki.
@BevBB: Bev, I appreciate your points, and your posts, very much. I agree with you on “The Relationship” and I agree with you and others that the idea of the heroine as a placeholder is often too simplistic if not dead wrong.
My students are reading Gaffney’s To Have and To Hold this week as their romance novel and I don’t see how anyone could read that and not think of it as just as much the hero’s story.
@Magdalen: I love the way you put that question — what’s the magic ingredient that’s missing?” and I think you’ve hit on a plausible the answer: men.
@Laura Vivanco: Thanks Laura, for replying to dick.
I also have no idea what is meant by “tried and true” academic analyses. I don’t actually do romance research, but as a philosopher, my approach, if I did, would be very different from someone with a literature background, and different again from someone with a cultural studies background, and again from someone with a sociology background.
If you think no pop culture phenomenon deserves academic study, that’s cool, but it’s not a view I share.
#24 by AQ on November 29, 2009 - 12:25 pm
Quote
So I used the word dreck this weekend in an e-mail and I meant it to mean that the argument was one dimensional, meandering, concentrated on only a tiny aspect of the whole so within my own mind I thought it was pure trash. Not that it didn’t have value as part of a larger whole but piecemeal it wasn’t good enough (worthy) to stand up to much scrutiny (…and it was tooooo long). So I used dreck to describe it. I got called on it.
Which brought me back to Jessica’s statement at the end of her post:
specifically romance is dreck
What do people mean when they use the term dreck to describe romance novels? What criteria are they using in order to make such a determination?
And the flipside:
In my younger days, I might have gone on the defensive. These days I would hope that I’d push back to determine what they meant by dreck. (Notice I said hope.)
So I’m curious, Jessica, what criteria did your students use to formulate the opinion? (and how did they test that, giving them the benefit of the doubt that they had actually read romances in order to test their criteria. LOL)
For the rest of us, I’m wondering if we’re all receiving the same thing when we hear the term. It’s so generic and the romance genre is huge and its readership diverse.
So what do you hear when someone calls your reading material dreck? What’s the first thing that pops into your head that must be defended? Is your reaction different if the book is from a different genre?
#25 by Jessica on November 29, 2009 - 4:04 pm
Quote
@AQ: Dreck means shit, worthless, especially devoid of artistic value.
As for my students, I will tell you that the most vocal critics of romance were the women. This may have been because the men didn’t want to insult a female genre in the presence of the female professor who put it on the syllabus. One objected to it as “porn”. She hadn’t read any but made her assessment based on covers. Another objected to the quality. She also hadn’t read any. I believe many of the women in the classroom worried over the connection to the romance genre which their femininity supposedly creates, regardless of whether they had ever read one, and wanted to distance themselves.
There are aspects of this distancing that have nothing in particular to do with romance and everything to do with philosophy as a masculine discipline dominated by men at every level from the undergraduate classroom to the faculty at Harvard.
One of the great things that happened in the classroom was the dawning realization that (1) the proper definition of the romance genre does not include a global valuation of all the instances of it. Value judgments have to be made about individual books. And (2) Once we got the definition down, they realized that many of them had in fact read a romance, such as Jane Austen, and liked it.
These are not the sort of things I stand in front of a classroom and tell students. They have to figure them out through guided discussion.
#26 by dick on December 3, 2009 - 10:51 am
Quote
@AQ
Looking at romance fiction as a cultural thing tells us more about the culture and the readers than it does romance fiction itself, except perhaps the endurance of fantasy. Regardless of the attitudes towards gender, age, etc., in romance, the HEA makes all those attitudes pointless, for every reader knows that in the end those attitudes, reflecting the culture though they may, will make no difference in the outcome. I don’t, by the way, think that makes romance fiction something unworthy. I just don’t think it’s a genre that academic attention will enhance.
@Laura Vivanco
Tragedy does not have to end with the death of the protagonist; he must only end in a lower state than he began. In romance fiction, the h/h MUST end in a higher state, in a state greater than they have ever known before. In doesn’t make any difference what the vehicle is on which the relationship is hung. Anything–differences in class, abusive behavior, marriage, theft– may act as the vehicle and may be commented upon trenchantly within the story. But the central feature of the book is always the relationship of the h/h and regardless how compelling the vehicle or how telling the comments about it are, the relationship, the central feature, will, by the end, prosper. Neither the vehicle nor the comments upon it have any effect on that. They are simply a means to tell the central story.
#27 by AQ on December 3, 2009 - 12:42 pm
Quote
@dick:
You say you don’t think romance fiction is unworthy but that’s not what I’m receiving from your response.
1. Why does academic attention have to enhance the romance genre**? Is it so lacking that academia is necessary to give it what? acceptance? validation? respectability?
Sorry, frankly I find studying patterns within it interesting as well as issues that get addressed. Do I think I’ll get an in-depth questioning of complex “high intellectual” thought. Maybe not, but I don’t get that with most books found in any other genres either although certain genres may be more focused on targeting those specific types of inquiries than others. Doesn’t mean percentagewise that they are more successful at it.
2. HEA endings. No difference in the outcome?
So what is my first response? Every genre has genre expectations for their endings and most of them within genre fiction have a “happy ending” for their first/second plot arcs as defined by those expectations.
Second, define higher place? The HEA may leave a reader with a sense of euphoria but if one digs into that ending I’m not so sure that the state of the leads is higher than when they started even if that’s what the HEA claims. Study would be required to confirm that hypothesis and because I’m curious I’d like to know what criteria would be used to validate such a position.
Third, no difference? I guess we’re not reading the genre the same way or even seeing the same patterns within the endings themselves. Have you noticed the differences in the endings from one generation of romance novels to the other and compared them to the time period they were created? Or are the details of the endings not important, only the stated outcome? Or maybe the endings have also endured just like the underlying fantasies?
the relationship, the central feature, will, by the end, prosper.
Again just because the author tells it will prosper or that the genre expectations are that they all live happily ever after doesn’t make it so.
3. If HEA ending is what you feel is the issue, could you name a romance novel that had it had a tragic ending instead of the HEA ending could’ve been reclassified as “worthy” of academic attention? Surely there is one within your reading library that would qualify. Perhaps if we killed off one of the leads during the villain confrontation. Is that all that would be needed for reclassification?
4. Endurance of fantasy? Let’s not pretend that the so-called “romance relationship” with it’s “fairytale ending” is the only enduring fantasy out there. I have to call bullshit on this one if for no other reason than the great attention military based fiction gets.
5. Please do me a favor and read one of the following Jennifer Crusie novels:
Bet Me
Welcome to Temptation
Agnes and the Hitman
then come back and tell me exactly why one of those books doesn’t warrant academic attention so that I can understand the actual position you’re taking. Or give me more specifics of what you’re trying to convey because I don’t understand the distinctions you’re making or what criteria you’re using to make them because I don’t know why you’re disqualifying an entire genre when the similar criticisms can be leveled against other genres.
**(I’m clarifying because the HEA requirement is not a requirement of “romantic” fiction but rather a US centric labeling/marketing requirement for its customer base.)
#28 by AQ on December 3, 2009 - 12:50 pm
Quote
Dick@dick:
Final question: If the ending of Shaw’s Pygmalion had changed to allow Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle to have a “typical” romance genre HEA ending, would that have changed the worthiness of the play in terms of academic study?
#29 by dick on December 4, 2009 - 11:48 am
Quote
@ AQ
1. Perhaps I could have chosen a better word than “enhance,” but it seems to me that that is exactly what academics are attempting, and I think it’s unnecessary. Does finding those patterns make any specific romance better or worse than it was before you noticed the patterns? I think it’s obvious that romance fiction is very successful in doing what it sets out to do.
2. Even though searching for an answer is the entire point of the genre, mysteries may end with the problem unsolved or the perpetrator unpunished. Science fiction may have any kind of ending the author chooses to give it. Only romance fiction requires a specific kind of ending, which, of necesssity influences everything that precedes it.
Higher place: The central feature of the romance is the relationship between the h/h, isn’t it? Somewhere in the romance, that relationship is threatened, but by the end, the threat has been removed and the relationship is made secure, either by vows of eternal love, marriage, or quite often both. So, within the limits of the text, the fortunes of the h/h have ascended; they are at a higher place.
No difference: I wasn’t writing of the manner in which the endings are written or explained, but rather that the things you spoke of in your earlier post–culture, gender, age–will make no difference in the outcome. Somehow the author will arrange those things so that the h/h will be happy or think they will be happy, despite all other issues.
I didn’t write that the author’s arranges things so the ending will be an HEA necessarily makes the HEA believable. Some authors can do it and some can’t, but they all recognize that it has to be there.
3. I don’t think I’ve said anywhere that romance fiction is not worthy. What I’ve written is that academic study will do nothing for nor take anything away from romance fiction. Academic attention is not going to make any romance fiction become part of what many refer to as the “canon” of great literature. The formula of romance fiction, in my opinion, just doesn’t allow it to deal with questions that literature of the canon deals with. But so what?
Any romance fiction in which I changed the HEA would no longer be romance fiction.
4. Of course it isn’t the only fantasy. All of the genre fictions have elements of fantasy in them.
5. Sorry, but no. I’ve tried to read “Welcome to Temptation” several times. Just can’t get into it.
re: Pygmalion. If I recall correctly, the non-HEA ending of the play was in a prose addendum, which I’ve always considered a slyness typical of Shaw, sort of an “ahah, gotcha” sort of thing. I’ve never noticed that the play received that much academic attention.
#30 by Laura Vivanco on December 4, 2009 - 12:08 pm
Quote
There are some kinds of literature which do need to be carefully studied before they can be understood, but academic analysis isn’t required in order to enjoy most works of literature. Indeed, a great many people find that literary criticism, if forced on them and/or taught badly, can severely damage their enjoyment of literature.
Romances don’t need to be studied in order to be enjoyed, but for those who enjoy academic analysis, it will enhance their enjoyment of the texts.
This very much depends on how you define the genre. We’ve had this conversation before, so I know you don’t agree, but many people consider Austen’s novels to be romances, along with many other canonical works which feature central love stories and optimistic endings. Many of Shakespeare’s comedies, for example, could be seen as romance in dramatic rather than novelistic form.
Obviously we disagree about this, too. And I’m sure Jessica, who’s been teaching Pat Gaffney’s To Have and to Hold as part of a philosophy course at her university, would also disagree. Just a few of the topics covered by romances that I’ve read are: coming to terms with the death of loved ones, overcoming addiction, confronting racial and sexual prejudices, exploring the meaning of freedom.
#31 by AQ on December 4, 2009 - 1:05 pm
Quote
@dick:
@dick:
Starting from the bottom up.
Pygmalion; yep, I studied that text as part of “Age of Enlightment” class a very long time ago. The text has many things to say about gender, class and love. As far as the addendum I was under the impression that it was added because people, the public who paid to see the play, wanted to have Henry & Eliza be together and Shaw was explaining why it would never work as well as that gotcha moment.
The thing that strike me about how romantic love is portrayed in the romance genre is that it is so new as a mass consciousness factor when viewed through a historic lens or at least what academia has conveyed to me about it. I’ve always been under the impression —perhaps incorrectly — that historically romantic love was viewed negatively by the community because its ultimate message was that the individual was more important than the community and because it gave too much power to the female gender. Now we have a society which holds up romantic love as some ideal to attain and yet the lens with which we view the reflection of the “ideal” (romance novels) is typically negatively slated or discounted all together.
5. Not trying to hold Crusie up as some ideal. Only used her works because the foundation and craft she uses.
4. All fiction is fantasy period. It’s a construct of the author’s imagination used to convey whatever story they are trying to convey.
Any romance fiction in which I changed the HEA would no longer be romance fiction.
Not true. Romantic fiction doesn’t require the HEA. US Romance genre does. And my question was whether or not the text was worthy of academic inquiry. Your position seemed to be HEA is the end all be all. So all I’m asking for is this: if we take the HEA out of the picture is there anything within the texts you’ve read that would be worthy of academic inquiry. Anything at all cuz I’ve taken college courses and somehow they manage to find all kinds of things to study or throw the academic lens on. So why shouldn’t romance novels be held up to scrutiny, if for no other reason to prove conclusively that they are “dreck?” Hey, I’m of the firm belief that if you’re going to say (which I know you haven’t, Dick) then go ahead and prove it.
3.My point about asking for criteria was to say that maybe the criteria being used was insufficient or even too biased to capture the essence of romance genre or even romantic fiction. What is it that academia feels is important to track and critique? How and when did academia come to that conclusion? Has that conclusion and its original biases been re-tested to ensure that the conclusion is still valid? Are we missing out on insights into our culture by excluding these texts or refusing to look at them in the first place?
Or must all authors be deliberate and focused like Joyce and craft novels so that academia goes nuts over them?
I didn’t write that the author’s arranges things so the ending will be an HEA necessarily makes the HEA believable. Some authors can do it and some can’t, but they all recognize that it has to be there.
But simply having a HEA shouldn’t discount the text from academic inquiry consideration. If Pygmalion had that HEA, we’d still have gender, class and love to discuss or put under an academic lens. That doesn’t change just because the ending is HEA.
No difference: I wasn’t writing of the manner in which the endings are written or explained, but rather that the things you spoke of in your earlier post–culture, gender, age–will make no difference in the outcome.
I can’t agree because I have no idea what you’re using for criteria and how you’ve tested that theory.
Higher place: The central feature of the romance is the relationship between the h/h, isn’t it? Somewhere in the romance, that relationship is threatened, but by the end, the threat has been removed and the relationship is made secure, either by vows of eternal love, marriage, or quite often both. So, within the limits of the text, the fortunes of the h/h have ascended; they are at a higher place.
This presumes that the only thing a romance should be judged on is the relationship plot. The relationship plot may be a central feature but it doesn’t have to be the first or second major plot thread. It certainly can be and maybe is for the majority of romance genre texts, but it doesn’t have to be. And depending on what you’re including within your definition of romantic texts outside of the romance genre, that premise may not hold up at all.
2.Actually the expectation is in mysteries is that the villain will be caught. In Science Fiction, it’s that the protagonist will survive. Same thing in Fantasy and Horror. Oh, yes, those endings may not happen but the probability says that they will. I’ve talked to authors in other genres about their fear killing off protagonists or not meeting genre expectations because of potential reader backlash. The difference in Romance is that the readership will most certainly punish the author if the book doesn’t fulfill the marketing promise. It’s not that the reader won’t read a romantic text with non-HEA, it’s that they were tricked by the label into thinking they were getting something else. Again only the US marketed ROMANCE GENRE label REQUIRES that HEA.
1. Yes. Absolutely yes. Just like seeing patterns in tv shows or movies enhances. Questioning the premises that are put forward. Does it resonate, is it relevant, is the premise one I hold true, will it stand up to scrutiny? Any time you hold something that resonates with so many people up to scrutiny, even the so-called fluff stuff, you discover something about yourself, about the culture you live in, or perhaps even that the world being describe isn’t one you even recognize. As a genre science fiction MAY push forth more intellectual arguments on topics like ethics, power, religion. That doesn’t mean that romantic fiction arguments on gender, race (it’s rather non-existent except for the niches), class, love, etc. aren’t just as relevant. Sometimes it’s not what you say but what you don’t. And perhaps romance genre fiction is more structured because of the outcome that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be learned from it. One has to be willing to see it for what it is rather than trying to judge it against some previously established criteria that says only THIS is valuable and worthy of study.
#32 by AQ on December 4, 2009 - 1:24 pm
Quote
One has to be willing to see it for what it is rather than trying to judge it against some previously established criteria that says only THIS is valuable and worthy of study.
Or to discount a text when it would otherwise meet the previously established criteria because of the HEA or because it pushed forth the messier emotional arguments rather than the purely intellectual ones.
Yep, personal opinion there with no evidence whatsoever to conclusively support my position.
#33 by AQ on December 4, 2009 - 4:03 pm
Quote
@dick:
It occurs to me that our definitions don’t sync up. For the sake of understanding and establishing a starting point baseline for further dialog could you please provide the following information:
1. Define romantic fiction
2. Define the criteria used to determine whether or not a text should be classified as romantic fiction
3. Describe the academic approaches and the criteria used by you as it applies to this statement:
4. How many texts were used to come to this determination and over what time period?
#34 by dick on December 6, 2009 - 11:09 am
Quote
@AQ
reply to #33
1 &2: I think the RWA definition works pretty well for the books that fall into the romance genre. I’ve been using romance fiction, by the way, as synonymous with romance genre as RWA defines it. I shouldn’t, I know. The criteria I use thus accord with the RWA definition, although I would exclude some romances–m/m, f/f, for example.
3. I’ve tried most of the standard critical approaches–formalist, humanist, archetypal, Read’s “empathetic,” naturalistic, historical. I prefer to approach literature as the formalist does–looking closely at the thing itself.
4. I’ve been reading in the romance genre for oh about 8 years now. I read at least 300 books per year. In the first 4 years, I read romance almost exclusively, on the principle that inundation is the best baptism, trying to look at the genre as I would novels by Faulkner or George Eliot or Austen. I decided that the best approach to books from the romance genre is personal taste, which has no critical foundation at all, but is probably the way in which the majority of readers approach the genre. Otherwise we wouldn’t have to include Cassie Edwards and Connie Mason amongst its practitioners. Yet we must do so.
#35 by dick on December 6, 2009 - 12:34 pm
Quote
@AQ reply to #31
#4. But there are degrees. Some fiction reflects reality far more accurately than other fictions. Most, I think, would agree that romances have a greater degree of fantasy than say, mysteries.
Re removing the HEA. Perhaps Lowell’s “Tell Me No Lies,” the HEA in which is pretty much a tack on. Some of Balogh’s trads might, several of which are more studies of types rather than romances. But to thus remove the endings violates the author’s intent in writing them, so I return to my original statement–they would no longer be romances per the RWA definition.
#3. Well, obviously romances can be, as the great interest in them in popular culture publications attests.
My contention is that, except as comments on culture, those studies don’t tell us much about the romances themselves. Nor, I think, do they really explain their appeal to so many readers of varying degrees of literary sophistication–except as good stories, well told, of course.
The requirement of the romance genre that each book have a happy ending, in my opinion, cancels out anything on which the story of the romance, the relationship, is hung. (In fact, in my opinion, the HEA in most romances implies far more than a “happy” ending. The HEA implies that the life of the h/h following the ending will be paradisical.) The story of the relationship can indeed, as Laura Vivanco states, include coping with death, racial prejudice, addiction and may very well make trenchant comments about those things. But none of that will change the ending. The HEA, although it may not cancel those things, makes them unimportant, for the real story, the author’s intent in telling the story, the reason readers read the story, is the relationship and its HEA. To study those things makes the romance into a vehicle for something else and certainly violates the author’s intent in writing it. I don’t think authors of romances set out to examine any of those things except as vehicles on which they can hang the story of the relationship. And, if they do so, I think any halfway adept reader would recognize that the author played them false.
#2. I’m not certain of your point here. If mysteries and sci-fi’s don’t have to have the expected ending and can still be enjoyed despite its not being there but romance can’t, doesn’t that set romances apart from other genres?
#1. The relevance of the things you wrote about can’t be denied. But in a romance, they are incidental rather than necessary parts, for the primary purpose in a romance is to delineate the relationship and bring it to a satisfactory conclusion–the HEA. Nearly anything else, even if having little relevance, would work as well if the author be competent enough.
#36 by dick on December 6, 2009 - 12:45 pm
Quote
@Laura Vivanco.
I applaud Jessica’s efforts. But that Gaffney’s book includes some things that make it a good tool to teach ethics in literature does not make it a book that truly deals with ethics as does say, Mansfield Park or Emma, neither of which I would classify as romances.
#37 by AQ on December 6, 2009 - 1:02 pm
Quote
dick, I think we’re closer to a baseline but I need time to ponder.
Here’s my follow-up so I can get a better distinction on your “romance” definition:
Specifically (writing out criteria if possible so that anyone could apply it to a novel) why aren’t Mansfield Park and Emma romance novels. They do in fact meet the RWA standard definition so what you are using to pull them out of the romance novel pool. To be clear, I’m not asking you to defend your position, I’m asking for clear-cut criteria that I can use to evaluate other novels.
ETA: PS I must admit that I don’t read Jane Austen. Her style was never to my liking so I ask the question without knowledge of the books but rather from the position that many readers plus some in academia classify those novels are romance. ***
#38 by Jessica on December 6, 2009 - 2:29 pm
Quote
Dick — I am curious why you would not classify Emma or Mansfield Park as romances.
#39 by BevBB on December 6, 2009 - 4:16 pm
Quote
@dick:
Well, I would hope so since it’s the one being used to help make sure that the members of RWA get and continue to be published. In other words, it’s a refined marketing definition of the genre. Nothing more, nothing less.
Does it fit with the expectations of the majority of readers of the genre? Hell, yeah. If it didn’t the publishers and therefore the authors wouldn’t be in business. OTOH, does it encompass everything that romances are and/or ever could be?
Uh, no.
It is quite literally a baseline measurement, used only to help people (meaning usually authors) looking to market their stories to understand what works within a popular genre strictly from a sales point-of-view.
So, I kind of find it odd that an academic of all people would use that particular definition as a way to decide if a book was worthy of further study. Labels, after all, are simply that. Aren’t academics the ones who’re supposed find the real truth about things?
#40 by dick on December 7, 2009 - 12:28 pm
Quote
@AQ & Jessica
reply to #37 & 38
I don’t think either of the Austen novels fits the RWA definition. In neither of those books is the relationship between the h/h the central feature of the book. In fact, it’s difficult to see either Knightley or Edmund as heroes in the same way one sees the heroes in a romance. Austen makes it clear in the opening pages of Emma that the heroine is the center of the story and throughout the book it’s not the relationship between her and Knightley but Emma alone who draws Austen’s attentions and to which, in my opinion, she wishes to draw readers’. Although it’s Fanny’s consciousness through which Austen speaks most often in Mansfield Park, it’s difficult to see her as heroine but rather as a place from which to observe the other characters. In many respects Fanny stands outside the actions of the novel. It’s the interactions amongst those characters in which Austen is most interested and what those interactions reveal.
#41 by dick on December 7, 2009 - 12:49 pm
Quote
@BevBB
All classes have to be based upon characteristics, I think–in essence, upon definitions. And, whether we like it or not, to think about something with any clarity,
requires that we use classes. Having read a considerable number of romances, I think it the RWA definition fits pretty well. What definition of the romance genre do you use? If it’s a better one, if it more aptly delineates the class, I’m not averse to changing.
I don’t think I’ve written that the romance genre is unworthy; I’ve written that I cannot convince myself that closely examining any of the books included in it will tell us much more about the book than the book itself does. I also don’t think, for example, that studying a loaf of bread will tell us nearly as much about it as eating the bread will. I don’t see what my being an academic has to do with it, actually.
#42 by AQ on December 7, 2009 - 2:06 pm
Quote
@dick:
I need your actual criteria. The RWA definition is subjective and even your reasoning for Emma and Mansfield Park is subjective. There’s nothing here that can be used—with at least an attempt at objectivity—for clear-cut novel categorization.
Am I breaking down plot and character arcs and then ranking them? Am I doing something else entirely?
Unfortunately without getting into the actual nuances of your categorization, I can’t get into the nuances of your argument. So please provide me with something I can use to apply your categorization methodology to my personal reading library.
Once I have that understanding, I can re-read your posts and come back with questions specifically targeted to understand your position. I’ve got a piece of the distinction you’re making, now I need the rest. I fear that it will take a couple more rounds of questions because you’re looking through a very specific lens. I’m not saying that the lens is a bad thing. I’m just pointing out that I’ve never looked at “romance” from that angle and right now my problem is that I’m not seeing the lens itself. Until I do, I won’t be able to see what you want me to see or engage you on the topic. Why? Because we’re not really talking about the same thing.
#43 by Jessica on December 7, 2009 - 2:24 pm
Quote
I think the RWA definition is pretty objective actually, but I agree that there is room for interpretation. So, for example, on the question of whether the relationship between Emma and Knightley is central enought o qualify, I think it depends on how you interpret “central”. I can see the argument that it really is Emma’s story, and not the story of their relationship centrally. It;s even clearer in the case of MP.
Sometimes romance authors go off into women’s fiction, and their transitional novels are hard to categorize for the same reason. The romance is important but arguably not central in the way romance proper requires.
#44 by AQ on December 7, 2009 - 3:21 pm
Quote
@Jessica:
If there’s room for interpretation then it’s too subjective for purposes of Dick’s argument within this thread that’s why I said it was too subjective. Even without Dick’s argument I think it’s too subjective because most people don’t use the word romance according to the RWA definition and categorizing a novel would be up to the individual. Outlander, Emma, Sookie Stackhouse, Eve Dallas? romance or not?
Anyway Dick’s stated that the HEA ending of romance make deeper meaning pointless and that romance with its HEA doesn’t warrant critical academic attention. In order for me to get to the heart of his argument first I have to know is how to apply the definition he’s using for romance then I have to understand the differences in HEA found within his defined romance category as opposed to say books like Emma or happy endings found in other genres without a relationship plot.
I’m not trying to be a diehand romance defender and I’m not even considered concerned with scoring any type of argument plots. I honestly don’t understand the lens Dick is using but I want to.
Edited to add: I changed the first paragraph because I put an unwarranted comment on the RITAs in there. Tried to strike it out but I couldn’t get my coding to work. I’m sorry for the remark for those of you who received it via e-mail.
#45 by BevBB on December 7, 2009 - 6:45 pm
Quote
@dick:
It fits pretty well now… because that’s what’s selling now… and that’s what you’re not taking into consideration when you cling to it so strongly. And so narrowly. Case in point:
You are describing an Austen novel but what you don’t seem to realize is that prior to, oh, probably the 1980s that could just as easily have been describing any category romance. Notice I didn’t say historical but those of the contemporary category lines. They were written mostly from the heroine’s pov, the reader didn’t get much relationship time at all and there was quite a bit of “society” built into them.
In other words, they were basically Regencies in disquise, set in globe-trotting locales all over 20th century Europe instead of 18th century England. And they sold like hotcakes. I have no idea what the official RWA definition was back then or if RWA even existed come to think of it, which might’ve left you up a creek.
That is not what sells now, though, and the “definition” has changed to fit the market, so tell me, from an academic standpoint, does that change in marketing definition negate the fact that those older books were romances?
#46 by BevBB on December 7, 2009 - 7:03 pm
Quote
@AQ:
That’s because you’re asking the wrong questions. Tell AQ what romances you don’t read and why, Dick.
#47 by AQ on December 8, 2009 - 10:34 am
Quote
@BevBB:
You’re right.
@Dick:
You’ve applied formalist, humanist, archetypal, Read’s “empathetic,” naturalistic, historical approaches to data in order research your conclusion: “romance” defined by your criteria has no deeper meaning and that the HEA of that same “romance” grouping deserves no academic attention. In fact, the HEA requirement is what makes it pointless.
I’m open to exploring your hypothesis but BevBB’s right I’m not asking the right questions. So no more questions from me. Just this:
Prove it. Lay out your argument and subject it to critical analysis.
Normally I wouldn’t go this far or ask another poster but I can disprove your statements using my definitions of romance, HEA and academic attention/inquiry just by looking at the academic attention that Jessica, Laura V, Sarah F and Robin have applied to “romance” works.
Deeper meaning? Yep, these members of academia have found some.
Academic attention? Yep, these members of academia have found “romance” novels worthy of academic inquiry.
So layout it out there and let us explore the merits of your hypothesis. Probably not here on Jessica’s site though. Create your own and link us to it. I’m anxious to engage my mind with the nuances of your findings.
@Everyone:
Which of the following are “Romance” novels as opposed to which contain romances or romantic subplots. There are no right or wrong answers.
Lover Avenged by JR Ward
Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor
Dirty by Megan Hart
Agnes and the Hitman by Crusie/Mayer
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Black Silk by Judith Ivory
The Sharing Knife: Beguilement by Lois McMaster Bujold
Remastering Jerna by Ann Somerville
Glory in Death by JD Robb
Emma by Jane Austen
Bitten by Kelly Armstrong
Master of Timberland by Sara H. French
Queen of the Darkness by Anne Bishop
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
False Colors by Alex Beecroft
Cry No More by Linda Howard
Marly’s Choice by Lora Leigh
Bonded by Fleur Reynolds
The Pirate Queen by Susanna Valent
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Now does that list change if you use RWA’s definition? If so, how?
#48 by dick on December 8, 2009 - 12:48 pm
Quote
@AQ
I can’t see how my reasoning is subjective when I’m using a definition of romance provided by the organization of those who write them. Do those authors not know what they are doing? Do they not know what they intend the finished product to be?
As for Emma and Mansfield Park, had Austen intended to write the same kind of novel that we find in the romance genre, both would have had the kind of HEA encountered in that genre–an overarching assurance that the h/h’s being together will make their existence halcyonic from that time forward. But they do not. They are matter of fact and replete with irony. And in neither novel is the intent of the author to portray the relationship of either Emma/Knightley or Fanny/Edmund.
BevBB’s statement that earlier novels in the romance genre were told entirely from the heroine’s point of view doesn’t make the RWA definition inapplicable. That the point of view from which the story is told is limited to the heroine doesn’t change anything. The central feature of those novels is still the story of the relationship and arriving at the HEA.
#49 by Laura Vivanco on December 8, 2009 - 1:06 pm
Quote
Love stories with happy endings have existed for a long, long time, so I don’t feel that the RWA definition of America is limited to recent fiction. It’s certainly true, though, that the texts being described by the word “romance” have changed enormously over the centuries. It’s been used to describe a wide range of texts, including chivalric romances as well as stories of adventure of the kind written by Robert Louis Stevenson. Recently, and particularly in the US, it’s come to refer to a very specific type of work, and that kind of work is described relatively precisely by the RWA definition, I think. Of course, there can be discussion about how much of a novel has to be about the love story and/or how “optimistic” the ending has to be for something to count as a “romance” but I think it’s fairly obvious that most of the books published by Harlequin Mills & Boon, for example, are “romances” (they do publish some other genres, including erotica). That there are some novels which don’t quite seem to be neatly included or excluded by the definition isn’t surprising. There are always objects/texts/creatures which raise questions about all sorts of definitions, in many different fields of academic study.
In my research I tend to use the short RWA definition of “romance” because I think it’s a useful one, particularly if one’s writing about the modern popular romance genre. When one’s analysing a group of novels in which the development of a love relationship is a very significant part of the plot, and in which there’s a happy ending of some sort for the couple, it can be helpful to have a single term by which to describe them, and which distinguishes them from other novels which have romantic elements but in which there aren’t happy endings, or in which the love story isn’t so important to the plot.
That said, I think of “romance” as a subset of “romantic fiction,” described by the RNA as
Again, this would include both some very old texts, and many very new ones.
Three other things I feel might be worth mentioning are that
(1) I think that defining “romance” only really matters if one’s trying to distinguish between groups of texts. If someone wants to generalise about themes which can be found across a genre, then it would be necessary to define the genre. However, if your work was very tightly focused on just one work it would be quite possible, in my opinion, to discuss an individual romance as “a novel” in much the same way as one could discuss any other novel. Obviously there are times when one might wish to set a particular novel in its literary context, and then genre definitions might be more important/useful, but if one was just looking at a particular novel’s depiction of love, or its symbolism, or its ethics, etc, etc, then I don’t really see that one would be obliged to define it in terms of its genre. After all, one isn’t obliged to preface every analysis of a canonical work by stating that it is in the canon, and explaining precisely why it is, and/or whether its position in the canon is contested. You can do that, of course, and at times it might be important to do it, but you certainly don’t have to do it if it’s not relevant to the topic you want to discuss.
(2) IASPR isn’t limiting itself to fiction but is “dedicated to fostering and promoting the scholarly exploration of all popular representations of romantic love.”
(3) The definition of “a central love story and an emotionally-satisfying and optimistic ending” doesn’t specify the number, gender, or even species of the protagonists. I don’t know why Dick is excluding lesbian and gay romances.
#50 by Laura Vivanco on December 8, 2009 - 1:23 pm
Quote
@dick:
First of all, I don’t know how you can be so confident about Austen’s intentions. Did she leave a detailed record of everything she intended when writing these novels or are you just making assumptions about what you think she intended?
Secondly, there is nothing at all in the RWA’s definition which specifies that the ending of a romance must give “an overarching assurance that the h/h’s being together will make their existence halcyonic from that time forward.” All the RWA says is that the ending must be “optimistic.” And as you yourself have just said, in defence of the RWA definition, it’s “a definition of romance provided by the organization of those who write them. Do those authors not know what they are doing? Do they not know what they intend the finished product to be?”
It would appear that, by using the word “optimistic” they have left open the possibility that romances can end with something less than a “halcyconic” scenario. There is also absolutely nothing in the RWA definition which excludes the “matter of fact” or the ironic.
The way in which the RWA came into existence has been described by Jennifer Crusie. I’ll quote just a little bit of what she has to say:
I think it’s worth reading in its entirety.
#51 by Maili on December 8, 2009 - 1:24 pm
Quote
@Jessica:
I’m late to this party (so typical). Hope you don’t mind me jumping in.
I consider some of Austen’s novels as romantic fiction novels and some as humour/satire novels, not historical romances (or to be accurate, contemporary romances).
If we have to use the genre marketing labels, I’d file P&P under “Chick Lit* because it has almost all elements of a Chick Lit novel.
Note: IMO, there is a significant difference between American Chick Lit and British Chick Lit. British Chick Lit is a branch of Humour whereas – from what I understand – American Chick Lit is a branch of Romance (but some say Woman’s Fiction, though?).
It does make sense if we think about it because the Bridget Jones novel is a result of Helen Fielding’s weekly Bridget Jones’s Diary column in a broadsheet (The Guardian or The Independent), which was a take-off of a popular monthly diary column in a society magazine (Tatler? The one who’s been in print as a magazine for 300 years) by a fictional Austenesque twentysomething woman — I can’t remember her name, it might be Tara*? Tamara? — during the ’60s ’70s, ’80s and ’90s (I don’t know if it’s still continuing).
This column was written by different authors over years. I believe Wendy Holden (a well-known British Chick Lit novelist), Bella Freud and India Hicks were among those. And the only rule the columnist has to obey – it has to have a satirical take on the upper class society and its world.
Anyway, both columns were clearly a tribute to Austen’s novels, particularly P&P. So Austen is, IMO, the mother of the Chick Lit genre (which has a longer span than the US CL genre; I think the British CL is about 25 years old? 30?). So with all this in mind, when I say Chick Lit I’m referring to British Chick Lit.
Chick Lit does have a strong romantic element, but as a rule it also has a social commentary, which is what makes Austen’s novels famous. P&P was known one time as a ‘comedy of manners’, which is what it essentially is.
Sorry for such a lengthy response, but I hope it at least explains why I don’t file Austen’s novels under Romance.
#52 by BevBB on December 8, 2009 - 3:01 pm
Quote
@dick:
Really? So, what you’re saying, Dick, is that the central focus of a category sized contemporary romance where the heroine and hero spent most of their time apart not working on their relationship and basically acting like two ships passing in the night is in actuality the story of a relationship? And that essentially managing to get them together in the nick of time at the very end of the book constitutes a happily ever after?
Because that was the basic “formula” of many of those earlier contemporary category romances I was talking about before.
#53 by AQ on December 8, 2009 - 3:07 pm
Quote
@dick: Part 1
Sorry I find this paragraph arrogant. Almost to the point of insult. It’s a US definition. Not all writers belong to RWA. Not all books labeled as romances were originally targeted to the romance market. Just like some labeled as mystery, science fiction and fantasy were originally written for with the romance market in mind.
There’s also an unspoken sentiment in here that seems to be saying that romance is lesser. Yeah, yeah I know that’s not your intent. Nevertheless, I’m telling you that it’s the subtext of what I’m receiving, especially with how you’ve phrased the two questions. There’s a presumption there that I can’t find the words to express.
So RWA’s definition is your objective tool for measurement that everyone should be able to use consistently. It’s not at all subjective.
RWA says Outlander = romance
RWA’s definition is objective
You are using RWA’s definition as the criteria for your analysis
therefore
Please give details of how Outlander by Diana Gabaldon supports the conclusions you have reached as it pertains to “romance.”
For the record, Diana Gabaldon doesn’t think Outlander is a romance. She states that her authorial intent wasn’t to write a “romance” and that the book isn’t a romance.
But you can’t use authorial intent as a measure for categorization because RWA’s definition of romance says nothing about authorial intent. Since you’ve stated that RWA’s definition is objective without any additional criteria necessary, you must accept RWA’s conclusion that Outlander is a romance as it pertains to your argument.
Or you must list out additional criteria used by you to gather and separate your data and admit that the RWA definition is not objective enough for the purposes of your argument.
#54 by BevBB on December 8, 2009 - 3:37 pm
Quote
@Maili:
This actually makes a lot of sense to me because ever since the first time I heard Chick Lit described I recognized it as being familiar, i.e. as being something that had previously been marketed as romance in the past. Medical romances, for instance.
My resistance to romance being equated with women’s fiction is well-known but that doesn’t mean that I also don’t recognize that individual books and types of books lean more towards actually being women’s fiction than true romance novels. Which is part of the reason I cringe silently when academics eternally equate Austen with the beginnings of the modern genre. But that’s just me.
#55 by AQ on December 8, 2009 - 3:51 pm
Quote
@dick:
Current Official RWA definition
How do I weigh the main plot to determine that it’s the central focus of the story?
What does an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending mean?
The plot
Example: Agnes & the Hitman. It’s a relationship plot with an optimistic and emotionally ending, however, I don’t think the relationship plot is the main plot. I think it’s plot number #3 or possibly #4. Therefore using RWA’s definition it’s not a romance based on my subjective opinion.
Without supporting criteria to tell us how to apply the definition, anyone who disagrees with me is also right.
It’s very much like asking: What is porn? The answer: I know porn when I see it. Subjective.
An Emotionally Satisfying and Optimistic Ending
You changed RWA’s optimistic and emotionally satisfying ending to Happily Ever After (HEA) within the scope of your argument. HEA is only one type of label used to describe a typical romance genre novel ending. A second would be Happy For Now (HFN). Having two labels in turn implies that optimistic and emotionally satisfying is not a universally agreed upon concept.
What other types of endings might fulfill RWA’s optimistic and emotionally satisfying requirement? We don’t know. So far I’ve named two. Could there be more than two? Yes.
Therefore the optimistic and emotionally satisfying requirement of the definition is also subjective. Or stating that:
This phrase means many things to many people. Again I point to the porn example above. Give me criteria so that I know how to apply the definition and measure it.
Inclusion/Exclusion
RWA has only existed since 1980 and the definition used to define what “romance” has changed during that time period. Case in point. RWA is slowly moving toward full inclusion of romances which include gay / lesbian/ transsexual relationships. For a while the definition included language which stated that the relationship was between a man and a woman.
That’s gone now but by you own admittance you excluded m/m and f/f from your analysis thereby narrowing the scope of the RWA’s current definition for romance.
Authorial Intent
Presumes that we can ever really know authorial intent or that authorial intent should be the overriding factor and it is not mentioned within RWA’s definition so we can’t use it as supplemental criteria. (Well, we can but that’s not the claim that’s being made.)
Taking the authorial intent card out of the bag: how should one judge Ray Bradbury’s Farhenheit 451 cuz Bradbury’s all over the board on what his intentions were? Do we trust him when he wrote it? Or closer to the current time some 50 plus years later? Somewhere in the middle? Does it matter who interviewed him or is it only our personal interpretation of his work that matters?
Conclusion
Between the change in scope of the RWA definition, the reliance on personal opinion to interpret the definition, the inclusion of authorial intent when it’s not addressed by the definition, and probably other things which we haven’t been uncovered yet, your claim that RWA definition is an objective tool used by you to gather data for your analysis can’t be supported.
Therefore: It’s not the only criteria you are using to separate your data and draw your conclusions.
#56 by AQ on December 8, 2009 - 5:27 pm
Quote
@Laura Vivanco:
Thank you for the link.
@Maili:
Thank you for sharing some of the differences between US & UK labels. I find it very fascinating.
All:
For the record, I have no problem with RWA’s definition. It’s just that it’s not objective enough for ME to use as criteria for determining argument scope. Then again definitions rarely are which is why there’s typically supporting documentation that goes along with definitions.
This lack of supporting documentation or rather my outsiders perceptions of its lack, was one of the reasons I was so critical of RWA’s RITAs.
If a judge can determine that a competing novel deserves a “not a romance” categorization then there should be written criteria that would support that categorization. The process should be as objective as possible. No criteria? then if I were a judge for the RITAs I could categorize Crusie’s Agnes & the Hitman as “not a romance.”
I’m sure my ballot would be eliminated because of who Crusie is and what she’s done for the romance world. But what if she were an unknown or wrote something that made me personally icked me out? The definition leaves it up to me if there’s nothing more to go with it.
And, now I’m going away for a while because I fear I’ve hogged the thread. I thank you all for allowing me to participate in this discussion and to Jessica for hosting it.
#57 by AQ on December 8, 2009 - 11:29 pm
Quote
One more thought about judging romances (it relates to Jessica’s ethics class discussion…kind of)
In order for a book to be categorized as a romance or judged within a romance contest. Does the reader/judge have to “believe” the two individuals fell in love or are they to judge authorial intent?
It is part of the RWA definition. (Oh, and notice that the definition excludes triads with the inclusion of two.)
#58 by dick on December 9, 2009 - 12:11 pm
Quote
@Laura Vivanco
I think the texts of Austen’s two novels are pretty clear indications of her intent, and she did write, in letters, that nobody was going to much like Emma (the character) and of Mansfield Park she thought to write something far less bright and airy than P&P. That the endings of both Emma and Mansfield Park are full of ungentle irony suggests the author implies something different from “emotionally satisfying and optimistic,” IMO.
When I write of the HEA as implying something halcyonic, I’m again going to the texts of romances, in most of which something more than merely happiness is implied in the endings. Is it accident that the endings of romances have come to be called HEA’s?
#59 by BevBB on December 10, 2009 - 9:31 am
Quote
@dick:
As far as I’m concerned, the concept of HEA is a fairy tale concept that’s been erroneously associated with romances and to some extent larger popular fiction that also has romantic elements in it. It’s just not that simple for most of us romance readers and anyone who thinks it is, is quite frankly missing the point completely.
To put it as bluntly as I can, there is a big difference between the reader expectation that the pair will be together at the end of the story and the fairy tale “happily ever after” ending – when one truly considers how the genre has evolved over time. That’s what I do not believe that you take into consideration at all, Dick. You are so hung up on focusing on the fantasy of the HEA that you’re not seeing the forest for the trees. Sure romance readers want a fantasy, but they also demand emotional realism in the relationships at the same time, particularly nowadays.
Do they get it in every single book? No, but they get it a lot more nowadays than they used to. So, simply believing any type of HEA means the same thing all the time in every single book that’s ever been published as a romance is questionable in and of itself and quite possibly an area of considerable questions for study.
And that’s where you err and err big time.
#60 by dick on December 10, 2009 - 12:29 pm
Quote
Some romances have greater realism than others, but however “real” or “unreal” the author manages to make the emotions in a romance appear, the h/h will nevertheless have an ” optimistic” result, and that result will occur, even though, with any rational consideration, the emotions depicted would lead to the opposite.
Changing the definition to “emotionally satisfying and optimistic” changes the meaning very little. What is optimism but the belief that everything turns out for the best? What is best unless it’s a greater than better result?
I can’t see how it’s an error to think that the feature of the romance genre without which a book cannot fall into the class influences everything that happens in the book. If that isn’t so, the optimistic endings of romance novels occur by accident.
I’m uncertain, when it comes down to it, that the romance genre and reason can walk in the same places. Whether a reader finds an ending emotionally satisfying and optimistic depends greatly on what the reader brings to the reading, as discussions about specific books makes plain. I’m doubtful that authors want their readers to analyze closely while they read–to reason through the events and the emotions of the relationship depicted,i.e.–even though the background on which the story is hung requires it.
I’m straying from the subject.
#61 by BevBB on December 10, 2009 - 2:37 pm
Quote
@dick:
You are?
Or have you quite possibly stumbled onto it?
Why shouldn’t these questions be asked about the individual books?
#62 by AQ on December 10, 2009 - 3:15 pm
Quote
@dick:
That’s a provocative claim.
True of every book that has ever book read by more than one individual.
Your doubt presumes that you know authorial intent. Have you spoken to authors or read interviews given by them on the subject? Also presumes that there is no deeper meaning to be found within the text.
#63 by dick on December 11, 2009 - 11:51 am
Quote
@AQ
When I wrote that each reader’s assessment of the ending differs, I was referring to the romance genre only and to the ending only. I can’t, for example, find a rational basis for an HEA in a book in which the hero rapes the heroine or even forcibly seduces her, but many readers do. There might be an emotional basis for it, but even that seems doubtful to me.
#64 by AQ on December 11, 2009 - 1:23 pm
Quote
Dick:
Life isn’t rational. What you describe happening in the book, happens in real life. If the book had true emotional justice what would that look it in real life?
The really really messy stuff. The police inquiry where the victim is treated like a criminal, the friend / family verbal, physical or just body language and tone accusations. The court case. The ugliness of our societal whispers: she’s a whore, she’s out to ruin his life, she wanted it, did you see what she was wearing, she shouldn’t have done…, she trapped him, etc., etc.
People say that our society has moved beyond but I’ve just described what I see still going on around me.
Maybe the romance ending isn’t perfect, especially if the author hasn’t redeemed the hero’s behavior appropriately. Maybe it is a fantasy since real life has a tendency to tear females apart in the above situation and real life females are very much aware of that reality.
But what does is romance genre attempting to do with a storyline like that? It’s attempting to capture what emotional justice would feel like if the real life system worked rationally.
You may not see it that way because your role in society as a male is such that you’re not subjected to this same version of reality. But the rationality you’re asking for from romance isn’t a rationality that exists in real life either. Far from it.
—-
Dick, I mentioned the stages of intimacy and courtship rituals in another thread so I’d like to ask you:
Do you understand the body language cues that many women use to establish trust?
When you’re reading romance are you aware of these subtle clues within the text that female romance readers seek?
Not consciously. I very much doubt that readers consciously look for body language. But then women and men use body language very differently in real life. I suspect that the same thing is true with reading fiction. Do you see them and understand them from the female perspective? Are you swept away in the courtship or are you viewing it from a distance?
Do you understand why the heroine believes that the hero deserves her trust even if his actions seem not to support that judgment? Or more importantly why a female reader might read it that way?
Romances with their courtship rituals don’t appeal to all females. My neighbor certainly doesn’t subscribe to them in real life and also she doesn’t understand their appeal.
I’ve often wondered how men view the “dance” in real life and how they view the dance in romance fiction. Are you looking for cues that say a woman is trustworthy? Is that even a requirement in your version of the courtship dance?
#65 by dick on December 16, 2009 - 4:52 pm
Quote
@AQ
Well, whether life has a more rational or a more emotional basis is debatable, I think. Were I to hazard a position though, I would think most people use reason more throughout a typical day than emotion. The alarm rings and reason says get up. The person decides to start the coffee, a reasonable thing to do. He showers, not wanting to be offensive to others or wanting to get further awake, both based on reasoning. And so it goes throughout the day.
I think anything written down in words is always more rational than emotional.
In your last, are you suggesting that males don’t read romance as women do?
#66 by AQ on December 16, 2009 - 6:14 pm
Quote
@dick:
What does this have to do with the discussion at hand?
I’m suggesting that many people don’t view the courtship dance found in the romance genre the same way and how they view it might impact how they approach and interpret the text.
I’m asking YOU as a male to address how you perceive the courtship dance found within the romance genre via my stated line of inquiry in the 2nd half of comment #64.
#67 by AQ on December 16, 2009 - 6:19 pm
Quote
I completely disagree. I hold up the author meltdown this week as just one example of an emotional response written down in words.
#68 by dick on December 17, 2009 - 1:39 pm
Quote
The opening line of your post stated “Life isn’t rational.” I took that as your premise.
Actually, I’m not certain what you refer to with “courtship dance” occurring in romances. Do you refer to the standard recipe for romance?
I don’t know what you refer to in post #67.
#69 by AQ on December 17, 2009 - 2:37 pm
Quote
@dick:
Fine. Life isn’t alway rational. There. Done. Not a premise. Now move on and address the rest of my commentary as it pertained to your commentary.
Can you make an attempt to answer the questions based on your own personal understanding of the courtship rituals within your culture and apply them to what you observe in your reading of “romance?”
I’d rather you at least try to answer the questions I raise without tainting your perceptions; however, if you do not feel that you can attempt such an exercise without additional framework, then I’ll be happy to comply once you extend me the same courtesy and I’ll even narrow that courtesy request down to one tangent. Your commentary at #63 and my subsequent response in the first half of #64.
Skip it. I refuse to be drawn any further into something that is essentially inconsequential to the original commentary. I apologize for going there in the first place.