Romance Tradition

The Romance Tradition

Earliest French romances date to the mid-12th century, c. 1150-60
Earliest English romances date to c. 1240
- The earliest of these romances for a courtly audience would have been in French. Anglo-Norman was the dominant literary language in England from 1066-1300.
Finest English romances date to the 14th and 15th centuries

Characteristics of Romance

The term romans originally indicated that a classical story was translated out of Latin into the vernacular. More generally speaking, Medieval romances, which were written in verse(usually octosyllabic couplets), might meet some or all of the criteria below but generally comprise enough of these characteristics to make them recognizable as romances.

Romance usually features

private issues rather than the public affairs of nations and societies;
a close relationship or love affair, often disrupted in some way;
a hero who acts as an individual, not as a representative of a society or group, usually a knight or nobleman (especially in later chivalric romance);
a lady who somehow figures in the hero's actions;
an adventure, quest or search upon which the hero sets out;
an emphasis on noble action and deeds (especially in later chivalric romance);
action set in an exotic or fantastic place distinct from the everyday world;
a courtly milieu, the world of the noble audience depicted in the story
other fantastic or magical elements;
plots governed by chance, not by a rational course of events; and many have
a happy ending.

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This page was created by Dr. G. J. Betcher, Iowa State University, for use in the classroom with the Longman Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 1a. If you have comments or suggestions, please e-mail the site webmaster at <gbetcher@iastate.edu>.