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Romance novels have the distinction of being, as Pamela Regis put it, ”the most popular, least respected literary genre”. While romance publishing is a billion-dollar industry, and romance novels consistently feature on bestseller lists, they have only recently become a (kind of) respectable subject for academic study. The International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR) was only founded in 2009, and their journal, The Journal for Popular Romance Studies (JPRS) launched in 2010. Romance novels, according to the definition given on the website of Romance Writers of America - an influential romance writers association - only have to feature two core elements: ”a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending”. This has allowed for the emergence of numerous romance subgenres, ranging from historical romance via erotic romance and chick lit to vampire and monster romance.
In this course, we are going to explore romance texts from the early 19th to the early 21st centuries: Jane Austen’s Emma (1815), E.M. Hull’s The Sheik (1919) and Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material (2020). Even though Austen’s novels are usually categorized as novels of manner by literary critics, many readers would look to Austen as one of the reigning queens of the romance genre. E.M. Hull’s novel is an example of so-called desert romance, a subgenre that was popular at the beginning of the 20th century. Finally, Alexis Hall’s novel is a queer romance (MM) using the fake boyfriend trope.
We are going to analyse the texts within their (historical) contexts and discuss the evolution of the romance script from the 19th century until now, while also harking back to earlier popular romance texts (such as, e.g., Samuel Richardson’s Pamela). You will be expected to read, present, and discuss excerpts from secondary literature on the popular romance (from, e.g., Pamela Regis’s A Natural History of the Romance Novel (2003) and Janice Radway’s Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (1984)) along with the primary texts. These excerpts will be made available to you at the beginning of the semester.
Texts: You have to have read Emma before the start of term. Please purchase the following editions:
Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. Fiona Stafford. Penguin Classics, 2003.
ISBN-10: 0141439580
ISBN-13: 978-0141439587
Hull, E.M. The Sheik. Virago Modern Classics, 2000.
ISBN-10: 186049093X
ISBN-13: 978-1860490934
Hall, Alexis. Boyfriend Material. Sourcebooks, 2020.
ISBN-10: 1728206146
ISBN-13: 978-1728206141 |
