As a
literary genre of
high culture,
romance or
chivalric romance is a style of heroic
prose and
verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of
High Medieval and
Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled
adventures, often of a
knight errant portrayed as having
heroic qualities, who goes on a
quest. Popular literature also drew on themes of romance, but with
ironic,
satiric or
burlesque intent. Romances reworked
legends,
fairy tales, and history to suit the readers' and hearers' tastes, but by
c.1600 they were out of fashion, and
Miguel de Cervantes famously satirised them in his novel
Don Quixote. Still,
the modern image of "medieval" is more influenced by the romance than by any other medieval genre, and the word
medieval invokes knights, distressed damsels, dragons, and other romantic tropes.
C. S. Lewis,
The Discarded Image, p. 9 ISBN 0-521-47735-2
Originally, romance literature was written in
Old French,
Anglo-Norman and
Occitan, later, in
English and
German. During the early 13th century romances were increasingly written as prose. In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there is a marked tendency to emphasize themes of
courtly love, such as faithfulness in adversity.
During the
Gothic Revival, from
ca. 1800 the connotations of "romance" moved from the magical and fantastic to somewhat eerie
"Gothic" adventure narratives.
Cycles
Unlike the later form of the......
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