Issue 2.1 of the
Journal of Popular Romance Studies was released last week and among the essays is Lynne Pearce's “
Romance and Repetition: Testing the Limits of Love” in which she argues that "the question of whether love is, or is not, repeatable is at the very centre of attempts to both define and understand it." Pearce suggests that "Western culture still clings to the notion that 'true love' is both
durable and non-repeatable: it is, by definition, an emotion that
stands the test of time." She then outlines some of the implications this has had for romantic fiction, a term which, it should be noted, refers to a group of texts including, but not limited to, romance novels:
How romantic fiction has, in practice, dealt with the spectre of
repetition is surely a question worthy of investigation, and—although I
have not had the opportunity to conduct such a survey as yet—I offer
below some hypothetical models predicated upon the canon of classic
romance:
- Happy Marriage: The most popular solution to the problem is to avoid repetition completely by focusing on only one
relationship for the duration of the story and then bring the romance
in question to a clean and definitive ending in marriage (“the white
wedding”). If previous relationships did feature for one or both of the
parties, they are very manifestly not “the real thing” and explained
away (see 2 and 3 following). Even though common-sense tells us that it
is impossible for any relationship to come to a fixed point, the
illusion of closure remains one of the most singular pleasures that
romance fiction trades in.
- Discredited Former Relationship 1: As in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
wherein Romeo is enamoured of a girl called Rosalind before he meets
with Juliet. Although this “repetition” of behaviour has the potential
to debase “genuine love,” Romeo’s devotion to Rosalind is treated
comically, with the Nurse roundly sending up his heart-sick lament.
Discrediting previous relationships through the implication that they
were (for example) predicated upon lust, or convenience, rather than
love is clearly a neat way of solving the repetition problem. In other
words, the characters (and especially the male characters) can be
permitted more than one relationship, providing that only the current one is “the real thing.”
- Discredited Former Relationship 2: As in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre,
there is also the possibility of a character having been “in love” more
than once through a plot device which ensures that that the previous love-object is retrospectively discredited. This scenario was perfected in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca , a text in which it is possible to accept that Maxim loved both Rebecca and the narrator but only because his first wife is subsequently exposed as “not quite all that she seemed.”
- Definitive Death: Here the notional finitude of marriage is replaced by the absolute finitude of death. The fact that there is no possibility
of death-bound lovers repeating, and hence discrediting, their
UR-passion explains why tragedy remains the most cast-iron means of
supporting the view that love is exclusive, non-repeatable, and forever. The fact that so many tragic lovers actively seek death as a means of protecting their love from compromise underlines the principle that “true love” eschews repetition.
- Duplicitous Afterlife: Although clearly a variant
of “Death,” the solution offered by Gothic Romance is remarkable
inasmuch as it simultaneously eschews and embraces repetition. While it
is true that the star-crossed lovers at the centre of a Gothic Romance
must never be seen to recover from their (one and only) love or
its loss, this need not prevent them attempting a re-union with the
lost loved-object (or, on occasion, his/her “double”) beyond the grave.
Further, the crimes and mishaps that have caused the lovers to be doomed
are subsequently seen to repeat those of their forbears and/or to
generate a repetition in future generations (Pearce 86). In this
respect, then, Gothic Romance must be seen as an instance of a genre
both having its cake and eating it: “Genuine Love” is, of course, unique and forever—but so is the (doomed) will-to-repetition.
Taken together, then, what these models suggest is that, throughout
history, romance has been consummately successful in side-stepping the
problem that repetition poses for the integrity of love, through plot
devices that either draw the curtain on previous/subsequent
relationships or, alternatively, find some means of discrediting former
love-affairs after the event.
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The image is a Cupid weathervane from Pentlow, Essex, photographed by Keith Evans (via Wikimedia Commons).
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