When romance authors gather around the water cooler, one of the topics that come up is how, as a literary genre, romance ‘don’t get no respect’.
I believe it is because there is a great misunderstanding about romance is. It’s not just chic-lit or a love story. Romance does cover those things but it is so much more.
The dictionary definition is revealing
1.
a. A love affair.b. Ardent emotional attachment or involvement between people; love: They kept the romance alive in their marriage for 35 years.c. A strong, sometimes short-lived attachment, fascination, or enthusiasm for something: a childhood romance with the sea.2. A mysterious or fascinating quality or appeal, as of something adventurous, heroic, or strangely beautiful: “These fine old guns often have a romance clinging to them” (Richard Jeffries).
This man is a romantic hero. It’s true! Meet Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs
At its heart, romance is about fascination, passion, dedication – perhaps in some cases bordering on the obsessive, as the object of one’s heart becomes all consuming.
It is also grand in scope – the medieval chivalric romances of the High Middle Ages centred not just on romantic or courtly love between the hero and heroine, but was also filled with adventure, mystery, honour and drama.
It keeps us riveted to the very final chapter, the very final word.
Romance is life itself.
Romance is accessible.
If the blokes in your life don’t believe me, then there is this: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott is a romance and I would argue that Die Hard is a romance of that same chivalric milieu.
Not convinced? Well there would be a number of manly men who would sit down to watch the British TV series Grand Designs which is, without fear of contradiction, a romance.
Host Kevin McCloud is a romantic hero indeed – you only have to listen to his narration to know that the man has a grand romance with architecture and design by the way he articulates the consuming passion on behalf the owners of the project. Every 55 minute episode sees all the elements of a romance – a courtship with the building design, the drama of the relationship with said design which threatens to become all consuming, a vision for the finished project despite the obstacles and in many case,s a ‘happily ever after’ too.
Human beings need romance as we need fresh air and sunshine. It is an elemental aspect of our nature. It is inbuilt into our DNA as part of our own Grand Design.