tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post7850455987610959848..comments2024-03-26T01:10:13.720+00:00Comments on Teach Me Tonight: Princeton Romance ConferenceE. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-49131604601436482632009-04-29T13:21:00.000+01:002009-04-29T13:21:00.000+01:00Oh, and one quick second comment. At the conferen...Oh, and one quick second comment. At the conference I disputed a bit with Mary over her question. I'd answer differently now, having thought about it more.<br /><br />I think what Mary's getting at in her distinction is a very important point. She's very right to point out the difference between Christian love-faith (in evangelical and non-evangelical romance), which is triangulated through God, and the erotic faith that I discussed. They're COMPETING religions, and the latter is a heresy from the former's point of view. Good work on this by Octavio Paz, in "The Double Flame." <br /><br />So yes, they are different bursts of imagination--but only as different religions are. They're also quite similar, from another perspective, which is where the scandal lies.E. M. Selingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-6432719622542281422009-04-29T13:18:00.000+01:002009-04-29T13:18:00.000+01:00Thanks for undertaking this, Sarah! (Undertaking ...Thanks for undertaking this, Sarah! (Undertaking in sense of taking on the challenge, not with, I hope, funereal mortuary overtones.)<br /><br />One quick correction: it's ALLAN Bloom, not Harold Bloom, I cite in my piece. The NYT ran an excerpt, in 1993, from Allan Bloom's last book, "Love and Friendship," which begins with a lament over the death of Eros (and that little smirk at popular romantic fiction). Allan was famous in the US back in the 1980s as the author of "The Closing of the American Mind"; "Love and Friendship" brought him back into the public eye, but as it was a posthumous book, the fracas didn't last very long. <br /><br />Harold Bloom would also be relevant to a discussion of Laura Kinsale's novel, via his interest in Emerson. But I didn't go there in this talk.<br /><br />Word verification: INGLATH. Why yeth, I am an Inglath pfofethor!E. M. Selingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-33489781592389368502009-04-29T10:45:00.000+01:002009-04-29T10:45:00.000+01:00"Have to figure out who is American and who isn’t...."<I>Have to figure out who is American and who isn’t</I>."<br /><br />Juliet Flesch's book about Australian romance focused on romances written by authors who'd been born/lived in Australia, and whose books were mostly set in Australia. That's one possible approach, but Pam's trying to write a history and has a different focus, so her solution to the problem of definitions is probably going to be a bit different. It certainly seems that way if <I>Pamela</I>'s going to be included.<br /><br />I do think it would be an incomplete history if there was no discussion of the literary context/tradition in which American romance authors were writing, and many of the novels which have had a very strong influence on American authors of romance weren't written by Americans. However, the publishing histories of such novels in the US are American.<br /><br />I find it interesting how some trends catch hold more strongly in one country than another. You don't find many inspirational romances in the UK, for instance. And romance itself isn't quite such a best-selling genre in the UK. Is there any correlation between things like this and the importance of religion and the "pursuit of happiness" in American life?<br /><br /><I>Is the form “invented” by M&B and HQN</I>"<br /><br />I don't think the form (the love story which ends happily for the lovers) was invented by M&B and HQN, but maybe they were one of the first publishers to concentrate on that kind of story, so that readers picking up a M&B knew that a happy ending was guaranteed?<br /><br />Thinking a bit more about the "pursuit of happiness" issue, it's interesting that in the UK we have a "Romantic Novelists' Association" writing "Romantic Fiction" but there's no guarantee there of a happy ending. It's guaranteed in Mills & Boons' romantic fiction, but not all romantic fiction.<br /><br />That guarantee of a happy ending is (generally) something offered by single-title romances in the US.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com