Time for a Change

Laura Vivanco

I've been blogging at Teach Me Tonight since June 2006 and in that time the study of popular romance has come a long way. When we started, there was really very little academic writing about romance available online. Now we have the Journal of Popular Romance Studies, a number of people post about romance from an academic perspective on their personal blogs and, as Laurie Kahn recently noted, at the Popular Romance Project “Sarah Frantz and Eric Selinger have been commissioning and editing unpaid essays by scholars all over the world about popular romance (from a dazzling range of perspectives) for the section of the blogsite called 'Talking About Romance.'” The Popular Romance Project has just secured $58,669 via Kickstarter as well as a $616,000 production grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (in addition to a variety of other, smaller, grants) so I assume that its website will continue to provide "unpaid essays by scholars all over the world about popular romance" for some time.

This being so, it seemed to me to be time to re-evaluate what I was doing here at Teach Me Tonight. One thing that TMT provides which JPRS and the PRP do not, is frequent updates about recent publications, forthcoming conferences, calls for papers etc. I'd like to continue posting about those things here. If you have news of that sort which you'd like to see at TMT, please let me know.

From now on I'll be taking my more general and/or analytical posts over to a new blog at my own website. I hope you'll join me there; given the sometimes inexplicable way that Blogger works (or doesn't) I'm hoping it'll be simpler for readers to post comments there than it is here. The new blog's still very much a work in progress but the first post is now up and I have an rss feed.

Sensitivity and Sexuality

Laura Vivanco

OnFiction reports that

In early July, the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media held its 13th Biennial meeting. [...]

Katrina Fong (York University) examined whether how exposure to different literary genres is related to one’s ability to infer what other people are thinking and feeling. Perhaps surprisingly, after controlling for various factors, only two genres were related to interpersonal sensitivity: romance and suspense/thriller.

CFP: Contemporary Black Female Sexualities

For a collection on “Contemporary Black Female Sexualities,” the editors invite essays that explore black women’s sexualities--and representations or manifestations of black female sexual desires--marked by agency and empowerment, as well as instances wherein black women’s sexual intimacies are regulated by them. Given the degree to which black female sexuality has historically been mediated by politics of respectability or silence, as well as hindered by and constructed in opposition to Western paradigms of womanhood and “normative” female sexuality, this volume seeks contribution--both disciplinary and interdisciplinary and from a range of theoretical, ideological, methodological, socio-political, and critical frameworks--that address and illuminate contemporary black female sexualities. (More details here)

Whipping up Coverage

Laura Vivanco

Under the headline "The Beating Hearts of Romance Writing" the New York Times features a photo with the caption:

At a party organized by Passionate Ink, a chapter of writers of erotic romances, Sarah S. G. Frantz, a professor and the president of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance, gave a demonstration of sorts.

IASPR's York Schedule

The conference schedule for the IASPR conference is now available. The conference runs from Thursday 27th September to Saturday the 29th and is being held in York. I'll post more details when the abstracts appear.

Encyclopedia of Romance Fiction

Kristin Ramsdell is looking for people to write entries for an Encyclopedia of Romance Fiction to be published by Greenwood/ABC-CLIO. Those people don't have to be academics:

The encyclopedia is aimed at students and general readers, not romance specialists or scholars, so the articles would need to take that into consideration, and, as my editor keeps reminding me, they shouldn’t be too academic. The articles cover all aspects of the romance genre (or as many topics as we could come up with and get approved) and range in length from 350 to 4000 words.

As is typical of projects of this type, there is little, if any, financial reward, but I can offer a copy of the encyclopedia to contributors, as well as author credit, which is always useful for one’s CV and might appeal to students, in particular.

I've been in touch with Kristin and seen the list of topics. At the time of writing, there are still a huge number up for grabs.

Some of them focus on the history of imprints/publishers: Arabesque, Avon, Bantam, BelleBooks, Bethany House, Brava, Dell, Dorchester, Ellora's Cave, Grand Central, Kensington, Mergers and Acquisitions, Minerva Press, Naiad, Penguin Group, Publishers and Imprints, Silhouette, Simon and Schuster, St. Martin's, Tyndale House, Zebra.

Some of the entries will focus on specific authors/books: Angelique series, Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Barbara Cartland, The Count of Monte Cristo, Janet Dailey, Ethel M. Dell, Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, Emma, Forever Amber, Elinor Glyn, Sergeanne Golon, Gone With the Wind, E. M. Hull, Ivanhoe, Jane Eyre, Mansfield Park, Grace Metalious, Margaret Mitchell, Mysteries of Udolpho, Northanger Abbey, Pamela, Persuasion, Peyton Place, Pride and Prejudice, Ann Radcliffe, Samuel Richardson, Rob Roy, Rosemary Rogers, Sir Walter Scott, Sense and Sensibility, The Sheik, A Tale of Two Cities, Three Weeks, The Way of an Eagle, Kathleen Winsor, Kathleen Woodiwiss, Wuthering Heights.

Others will look at specific subgenres/types of romance and plots: Alternative Reality, Arranged (or forced) Marriage Plot, Beauty and the Beast Theme, Chick Lit, Cinderella Theme, Comedy of Manners, Contemporary Romance, Early Classic Romances (e.g. Greek, medieval), Erotica and Romance, Fan Fiction, Fantasy Romance, Futuristic Romance, GLBT Romance, Gentle Reads, Horror and Romance, Hot Historicals, Medical Romance, International Popular Romance, Multicultural/Ethnic Romance, Paranormal Romance, Pygmalion/My Fair Lady Theme, Romances by Men, Romance Films, Romances for Men, Romance Subgenres Overview, Sagas, Science Fiction and Romance, Secret Baby Plot, Seduction Novels, Sentimental Gothic Romance, Short Stories and Novellas, Story Papers and Dime Novel Romances, Suspense in Romance, Sweet Romances, Sweet/Savage Romance, Time Travel Romance, Urban Fantasy and Romance, Urban Fantasy Romance, Women's Fiction and Romance, Women's Romantic Fiction, Young Adult Romance.

On the more technical side there's: Agent, Audio book, Backlist, Clinch Cover, Covers and Cover Art, Critique Groups/Critique Partners, Cross-genre Romance Marketing, Current Publishing Environment, Decline of the Midlist, Editor, Editorial and Printing Quality, Electronic Publishing, Financial Aspects of the Genre, Formats/Definitions - History and Importance of, Hard cover, History of Romance Publishing, Illustrations, Marketing Romance, Mass Market Paperback, Out-of-Print Titles, Pseudonyms, Publishers' Genre Labels, Publishing Cycles, Publishing Industry and Romance, Romance Blogs/Wikis/Websites, Romance Industry and the Business of Romance, Romances in Bookstores, Self-Publishing and Self-Published Romances, Single Title, Small Presses, Social Media and Romance, Technology and its Impact on the Romance Genre, Titles (selection and importance of), Trade paperback, Video book

Some deal with broad themes/issues/character types in romance: Alpha Hero/Beta Hero, Appeal of the Romance, Censorship in Romance, Characterization (importance of), Characters (secondary or supporting), Cultural and Social Impact of Romance Novels, Description in Romance, Empowerment of Women, Happily-Ever-After-Ending, Hero (role of, importance and types), Heroine (role of, importance and types), Mood and Atmosphere in Romance, Perception of the Popular Romance Genre, Plot Patterns in Romance, Point of View in Romance, Power of Love Theme, Reader/Writer Connection, Romance (Definition), Sensuality Levels in Romance, Sensuality's Effect on the Popular Perception of the Genre, Sequels and Spin-offs of Classic Works, Setting as Character, Setting (Importance), Settings (Typical of Various Subgenres), Sex in Romance, Small Towns/Communities as Settings, Social Issues Addressed in Romance Fiction, Society as Character (e.g. the Regency ton), Subversive Nature of the Romance Novel, Themes in Romance Fiction, Trends in Popular Romance Fiction, Writing Styles (importance of), Writing Styles (types and techniques)

On the organisational side there's: Daphne du Maurier Awards, Libraries and Romance Fiction, Maggie Awards, Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association, Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green State University, Prism Awards, Romance listservs, Romance Readers (who they are and cultural and period differences), Romance Reading Collections, Romance Research Collections, Romance Writers of America, Romance Writers of America Awards, Romance-Related Conferences and Conventions, Romance-Related Organizations, RoNA Awards, Royal Ascot Awards, Scholarly Research and Publication in Popular Romance Fiction.

I may have accidentally missed out some entries because the list is extremely long and, in the time since I received it, it's possible that contributors may already have come forward to claim some of these topics.

If you're interested in contributing to the Encyclopedia, please contact Kristin at kristin.ramsdell@csueastbay.edu

Amy Reports Back: EUPOP 2012

Laura Vivanco

Amy's back from London, where she attended the first conference of the European Popular Culture Association (EUPOP). Here's what she has to say about the panel on romance,

called Romancing Europe in which I gave my own paper. The panel featured four presenters, who each discussed various aspects of popular romance in Europe.I have previously blogged details of this panel here.

The panel kicked off with An Goris whose paper, entitled ‘From Local to Global: Reading Category Romance in Europe’, discussed the translation of romances, arguing that Harlequin’s cross-cultural appeal is based on its simultaneous use of both localising and globalising strategies to achieve success in the culturally, linguistically and nationally diversified European market.

An’s paper was the perfect frame for the second speaker, Artemis Lamprinou, whose paper ‘Breaking the Rules: Translating Emotions in European Popular Romance’ considered the representation of emotion in popular romances translated from English into Greek. Lamprinou offered a detailed discussion of the apparent disjunction in emotional intensity between romances in Greek and in English.

The third paper was my own, entitled ‘A Very English Place: The Intimate Relationship Between Britain and Arabia in the Contemporary Sheikh Romance’. Examining the setting, content and authorship of some twentieth and twenty-first century sheikh romances, I argued that far from being geographically indistinct, sheikh romances remain deeply rooted within British imperial interests.

The final paper was by Tom Ue, who made a late change and gave a very up-to-date paper on the film The Amazing Spiderman which was released this summer. Tom discussed non-linearity and the protagonists’ inability to articulate. This was the only romance-related panel at the conference (a big contrast to PCA in the USA) and was well attended, with an interesting discussion afterwards.

You can read more about the conference over at Amy's blog.

Counting Orgasms

Laura Vivanco

In a followup to an earlier article on "sex scripts in romance novels" (Ménard and Cabrera 2011, discussed here), Christine Cabrera and Amy Dana Ménard have now produced some research on orgasms in romance novels.

It should be noted that, once again, they base their conclusions about romance-novel-sex on "books that had won the Romance Writers of America award for
best contemporary single title romance from 1989 to 2009." They acknowledge that as a result "This study was subject to a few limitations, the most obvious being sample size (i.e., 16 books and 91 depictions of orgasm)" and potentially significant differences between contemporary single title romances and

novels from other romantic subgenres (i.e., historical, paranormal, romance/erotica); it is possible that novels from other genres might show greater deviation from the traditional sexual script. This sample included multiple novels from the same authors [...]; therefore, it is possible that results may have been influenced by the biases or preferences of said authors.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the article is the section in which romance-novel-sex is contrasted with real-world-sex:

Studies of the real-world sexual script tend to show that male orgasm is privileged over female orgasm. [...] Sexual behaviour surveys have shown that men are significantly more likely to have experienced an orgasm during their last sexual encounter than women (Richters et al. 2006). These results are contradicted in the present investigation, where the orgasm of female characters was prioritized and female characters experienced significantly more orgasms than male characters. The contrast between the central role of female orgasm in romance novels compared to their more marginalized role in real-world sexual experiences may have several explanations. For instance, romance writers might be creating an idealized, feminist re-imagining of the script to privilege womens’ orgasms over mens’. Or, authors may be producing material designed to give readers an enjoyable vicarious experience (similar to camera angle selection in pornography).

Whatever the reason, the prioritising of female orgasms in these novels would seem to contribute to a positive experience for female readers. However, there are aspects of romance-novel-sex which Cabrera and Ménard suggest may be less positive for certain readers: "Readers are likely to be impacted differently but it is possible that a portion of readers may derive unrealistic expectations or beliefs about their own sexual experiences from these novels."

Analyses of romance novel descriptions show that the orgasms of female characters were likely to be triggered by penile-vaginal intercourse or manual stimulation whereas the orgasms of male characters were almost always the result of penile-vaginal intercourse. This finding reflects the frequency of this behaviour in the general public, where penile-vaginal intercourse is the most commonly-endorsed behaviour in sex surveys (Herbenick et al. 2010; Richters et al. 2006). However, real-world women are unlikely to orgasm from penile-vaginal intercourse alone but also require oral and/or manual stimulation (Richters et al. 2006); this experience is not reflected in romance novels and may lead to false expectations and frustration, if these expectations are applied to real life sexual scenarios.

Another possible source of disappointment for anyone believing that real-world sex should always resemble that depicted in romance novels is the nature of the orgasms:

A large proportion of all orgasms occurred simultaneously for both sexes (45 %). While simultaneous orgasms are idealized in Western culture (Colson et al. 2006; Ellison 2001), many couples may experience difficulty with creating this scenario (Greenberg et al. 2011). Again, this may lead to false expectations and
disappointment.

and although

many women report feeling shame or a sense of inadequacy due to their difficulties with orgasm (Lavie-Ajayi and Joffe 2009) and difficulties with orgasm are the second most-commonly reported problem by American women (Laumann et al. 1999) [...] rapid and frequent orgasms for female characters in romance novels are considered the norm. However, rapid orgasms were never connected with male characters, most of who had significant control of their orgasm and could withhold orgasm for a significant period of time (during which the female character would experience multiple orgasms). Again, this stands in stark contrast to survey data indicating that rapid ejaculation may be a problem for some men.

Finally,

The lack of variety in method of achieving orgasm and type of orgasm amongst male characters limited our analyses but was also an interesting finding. This result is inconsistent with findings within the sexual behaviours literature, which show that many men experience orgasm from receiving oral and/or manual stimulation from their partners (Herbenick et al. 2010; Richters et al. 2006). The absence of manual and/or oral stimulation of male characters in romance novels exemplifies female sexual passivity and traditional gender roles, suggesting that women may not experience pleasure from stimulating their partner and that the ideal male orgasm occurs though penile-vaginal intercourse.

As a result of this and the finding that

Male characters were frequently described as being responsible for bringing about their partner’s orgasm. This theme was present in 29 % of orgasm descriptions. [...] Far fewer descriptions reflected agentic behaviour on the part of the female character with respect to bringing about her own or her partner’s orgasm; only 3 % of extracts included this theme.

the authors suggest that

Traditional gender roles, i.e., male agency and female passivity, are reinforced within the sexual scripts for orgasm in romance novels. This may lead some readers to experience conflict between their own authentic sexual desires and those mandated by romance novels.

They are aware that they only studied romance novels and not their readers. Their hypotheses regarding the potential impacts of romance novels on certain readers are therefore unsubstantiated and they conclude by observing that areas for future

study might include readers’ introduction to romance novels, novel preferences, and the impact and influence of these novels on their sexual attitudes and behaviours. This would inform the ongoing debate regarding the influence of romance novels, i.e., whether they function to entertain readers, educate them or both.

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• Cabrera, Christine and Amy Dana Ménard. “'She Exploded into a Million Pieces': A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Orgasms in Contemporary Romance Novels.” Sexuality & Culture, Online First™, 10 July 2012.

• Ménard, A. Dana and Christine Cabrera. "‘Whatever the Approach, Tab B Still Fits into Slot A’: Twenty Years of Sex Scripts in Romance Novels." Sexuality & Culture, Online First™, 3 April 2011.

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The "O" images were all taken by chrisinplymouth and were found at Flickr. They are all used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license. The images, from the top row to the bottom (starting at the left and ending at the right of each row) are:
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Links: Librarians, Zombies, Sheihks, and Fifty Shades of Sin

Laura Vivanco

Recently Vassiliki Veros was a member of a reader’s panel at the Australian Library and Information Association's 2012 conference and she's posted her paper at her blog. She's a librarian, but

As a reader, I gave up on accessing my books from my library early on. I bought all my romances from newsagencies, supermarkets, second hand bookstores, bookshops, markets, online and swapping books with friends. As a romance reader I am not unique in this behaviour.

This is because

Libraries have treated romance readers as “the devil” for they maintain a distance from them. We see this in librarians trying to improve the readers choice, cataloguers not valuing the books the readers choose. All this is reflected in the romance readers survey responses that the library is not a provider for their reading needs.

There are a few posts about zombie romance, or "zomrom" over at Undead Studies, including one which asks

Why can’t we love the undead? So many friends push aside the idea of a zombie lover completely (you guys can’t judge me! You read about vampire sex!) [...]
As discussed before [see this post], zombie romance is more romance. Sex never enters the equation. It’s about a relationship of souls (personalities), a coming together of two people.

But still zombies aren’t good enough! The rotting is either done away with completely or can be avoided with medication. The eating of people or brains is the same. So where is the problem? They are undead humans, as are vampires. With rational thought, being capable of emotions, moral agency and free will, why are the undead any less suitable as mates?

Jessica Taylor, author of "And You Can Be My Sheikh: Gender, Race, and Orientalism in Contemporary Romance Novels" evidently prefers sheikhs. This summer

The top shelf of my largest bookshelf is stacked two rows deep with romances with titles like One Night with the Sheikh by Penny Jordan and Desert Barbarian by Charlotte Lamb. These books (and a corresponding set of binders full of photocopies from 1920s movie magazines) are the remnants of a research project on romantic Orientalism in the United States in the 1920s and 2000s which is currently on hiatus. [...] But now the blogosphere is in luck. This summer I’ve decided to set myself a lofty task:

Read and review all of my sheikh romances and post the reviews on this very blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. On Wednesdays I’ll post a scan from one of the many articles about how hot Rudolph Valentino is. Is this an overly optimistic schedule for someone who’s also finishing her thesis? I guess we’ll see…

And you can read all about it here. She begins with an extended synopsis of/commentary on E. M. Hull's The Sheik (1), (2), (3) and (4).

With regards to a very much more recent phenomenon in sexually titillating fiction, Remittance Girl suggests that

Fifty Shades of Grey does an interesting dance with the explicit. It revels in the details of the taboo of BDSM while seeming to condemn it. [...] And many, many readers love this. They can masturbate furiously to the scenes played out in the Red Room of Pain, while waiting for the heroine to cure Mr. Grey of his perversions.

 I am reminded of the masses who enjoyed the spectacle of the Salem Witch Trials or denunciations of heretics during the Spanish Inquisition. 

"She consorted lewdly with the Devil!" the inquisitor proclaims, partly for the judges but loudly enough to entertain the masses. He lovingly details the proof of her perfidy. The women gasp and feel a quiver between their thighs right before they all scream, "Burn the witch!" [...]

I don't think a large portion of mainstream society has evolved much since then. And for erotica writers, who usually situate themselves firmly in the sex-positive camp, this is very hard to comprehend. We write novels about how erotic experience and the exploration of new sexual territories helps us grow as individuals. For us, sex in a doorway. Very often our themes are about revelation, completion, redemption through experience. Not through shame or rejection or closing down our sexual options.

The photo of "Zombie and Bride of the Zombie" came from Wikimedia Commons and was taken by Sam Pullara, who has made it available for use under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.


The poster of the film of The Sheik also came from Wikimedia Commons, as did Martin van Maële's "Illustration de La sorcière, de Jules Michelet. 1911" which depicts witches dancing naked.

Love and Religion (John Lennon Edition)

--Eric Selinger

Last week the Popular Romance Project posted a little piece by me about love and religion--or, to be more specific, about love as religion, the religion of romantic love.

We have a Call for Papers on this topic over at the Journal of Popular Romance Studies, and I hope that you (whoever you are) will spread the word or submit something.  As you'll see from the CFP, "texts from all traditions, media, and periods are welcome," and we have a particular interest in pieces about

• Sacred love stories retold in popular culture
• Hymns, love songs, and the porous boundary between them
• Romantic love as a surrogate or secular religion, and debates over this
• Crossover texts and figures:  Rumi, the Song of Songs, etc.
• Representations of interfaith romance
• Love and religion in popular culture from before the 20^th century, and from indigenous and other non-hegemonic religious traditions (Candomblé, Wicca, etc.)

That covers a lot of ground, and if you have a topic in mind, feel free to shoot me a message and ask.

Sometimes the intersection of love and religion involves seeing the beloved as a divine (or quasi-divine) figure--love as worship, or love as idolatry, I suppose--and sometimes it involves seeing something "of God" in the person you love, as Laura mentioned in a comment to one of my earlier posts.

Another way to think about romantic love and religion, though, is less theological than functionalist.  That is, love or marriage could function in someone's life the way religion does:  as a source of meaning and purpose and value; as a structure in which other parts of a life must take their place; as a priority that determines other actions and beliefs, etc.  I think this is part of what Robert Polhemus is getting at in his idea of "erotic faith":  an idea that comes from his book of that title, and one that's been put to good use in the context of popular romance fiction by Catherine Roach, in her essay "Getting a Good Man to Love."

There's no need to invoke divinity at all in this functionalist context, I suspect.  Love (or marriage, or the relationship) could be what you "believe in," even if you're an unshakable atheist in any other context, just as you might "believe in" your country or The Revolution or some other cause.

In the classroom, the functionalist idea of religion is often hard for my students to take in, probably because their sense of what religion is (or isn't) has been so profoundly shaped by conservative evangelical discourse here in the US.  There's a haunting British text, though, that seems to clarify the concept for them in a quick and memorable way:  John Lennon's song "God," from his first solo album, John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band (1970).

The crucial turn in the song comes in the penultimate verse, when Lennon pivots from what sounds like a purely existentialist or individualist credo ("I just believe in me") to something else, which I take as a revision, a clarification, of what he just said--and not, as the folks at Wikipedia have it, a second, separate article of faith.  Take a listen, and you'll see what I mean.  I don't want to give too many spoilers.

It's quite a song.  Maybe we'll publish an essay on it, in that "Love and Religion" issue?  (Hint, hint.)

Sarah Frantz Reviews and Edits

Laura Vivanco

Sarah Frantz has reviewed Julie Moggan's documentary, Guilty Pleasures, about romance readers, a romance writer and a cover model and she's "angry about this movie [...]. Every time I think about it, I growl. I think Moggan was unforgivably cruel to all of her subjects but especially to the cover model." The complete review is up at Dear Author.

Sarah's now only a guest reviewer at Dear Author because she

left recently [...] to start a new venture: freelance editing. She opened Alphabet Editing, and is also thrilled to be working with Riptide Publishing. She’s already worked with the amazing Rachel Haimowitz on Power Play: Awakening, and is editing O Come, All Ye Kinky, which is exactly what it sounds like: an anthology of short, kinky romances, with 20% of proceedings going to the National Leather Association’s domestic violence initiative (the call for submissions closes August 1). A unique service she offers is BDSM manuscript consultation: if you write BDSM or poly, she can read your manuscript with an eye for physical and psychological realism in your characters and their activities. (from Keziah Hill's introduction to an interview with Sarah)

Alphabet Editing

Is Northrop Frye a Smart Bitch?

Jonathan A. Allan

July 14, 2012 marks the Centenary of Northrop Frye’s birth. Frye remains, without doubt, one of Canada’s most important literary and cultural critics, standing alongside Linda Hutcheon, J. Edward Chamberlin, Marshall McLuhan, and undoubtedly others. The Centre for Comparative Literature and the Department of English at the University of Toronto will host an international conference in honour of the Centenary (Educating the Imagination: A Conference in Honour of Northrop Frye on the Centenary of His Birth). Originally, I had intended to participate in the conference and present a paper called “Is Northrop Frye a Smart Bitch? Northrop Frye and the Development of Popular Romance Criticism.” Unfortunately, things have changed and I am unable to participate. Thus, I provide here some initial thoughts on Frye and popular romance criticism.

Most students of literature will read aspects of Northrop Frye’s theory of literature, likely taken from Anatomy of Criticism, and almost certainly about “archetypes.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, for instance, offers “The Archetypes of Literature.” Frye, of course, wrote about much more than archetypes. His writings on genre, and romance in particular, remain essential reading.

It could be argued that the most concise and enduring definition of romance comes from Northrop Frye. Frye’s theory of romance is convincing, I believe, because of its malleability and its translation across literary traditions, national traditions, and the erroneous concepts of “high” and “low” literature. Frye’s structuralism and archetypes are useful because they so often lend themselves to literary examples beyond the scope of Frye’s own writing. These, however, are just my opinions; what do other critics think?

In The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act, Fredric Jameson writes, “Frye’s theory of romance […] is the fullest account of the genre.” In A Natural History of the Romance Novel, Pamela Regis, “the conventions of romance are very stable; the basic story, as Frye notes, has not changed in the centuries that followed its advent in ancient times.” Corinne Saunders, in her introduction to an anthology on romance, writes, “most influential in developing a grammar of romance has been Northrop Frye.” David Fuller, echoing Saunders, refers to Frye as “one of the most influential critics of the mode.” Likewise, Raymond H. Thompson writes that Frye is “the most influential among theoreticians.” Even in disagreement, critics like Doris Sommer have to admit that “Frye’s observations about masculine and feminine ideals are to the point; they point backward to medieval quest-romance where victory meant fertility, the union of male and female heroes.” Finally, Frye’s observations cut across traditions as Lois Parkinson Zamora recognizes “twentieth-century magical realism is a recent flowering of the more venerable romance tradition that Frye describes.” Indeed, though this is just a brief survey of Frye in criticism, it does seem certain that Frye is essential to romance scholarship.

But what can be said of Northrop Frye and popular romance criticism? Pamela Regis’s A Natural History of the Romance Novel is, as we likely know, very much engaging with Frygian thought. Regis takes Frygian ideas about romance and applies them to the popular romance novel. Laura Vivanco’s For Love and Money: The Literary Art of Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance draws heavily on Frye’s early statements on romance.

To provide just one more, and final, example – Northrop Frye and the Smart Bitches. Wendell and Tan have summarized the romance novel as: “boy meets girl. Holy crap, shit happens. Eventually, the boy gets the girl. They live happily ever after.” Though the definition may lack a certain ‘academic prose,’ the definition itself flirts with Frye. Frye writes, “there is a social as well as an individual theme which must be sought in the general atmosphere of reconciliation that makes the final marriage possible.” Wendell and Tan, like Frye, recognize the importance of the concluding moments, the moments when the narrative comes together. Indeed, Pamela Regis notes this as well, “a novel that ends with the hero and heroine not in love, not betrothed, is simply not a romance novel.”

Frye, unfortunately, has fallen out of fashion in the literary academy. Perhaps many have not yet read through Frye’s theory of romance. There is, however, hope. Eric Selinger and Sarah Frantz remind us in their introduction to New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction that Northrop Frye was “the great early theorist of ‘Romance’ in the broadest sense.”

From my perspective, the importance of Northrop Frye in popular romance criticism cannot be denied, and perhaps like Fredric Jameson, we must recognize that “any reflection on genre today owes a debt – sometimes an unwilling one – to Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism” (and I would add The Secular Scripture).

Quotes About Eros (Things Called Love, 3)

--Eric Selinger

So:  the Eros tradition.  (I'd call it the "erotic" tradition, but that word has more purely sexual overtones now, and there's no reason to assume that there's any more sex involved in this tradition of love than in the companionate tradition.  In fact, arguably there's much less.  But I digress.)

Rather than try to compose my own longish, thoughtful post on the Eros tradition, I thought I'd assemble a bunch of quotes about it from various authors, limiting myself to a few at a time and posting several times on the topic.  That's an easier sort of blogpost to write, since I can steal a few minutes here and there to type things in when I'm too tired to think.  I hope it will be a useful sort of post for readers as well, since it will leave you with some handy passages to use and sources to follow up.

The locus classicus of thought about the Eros tradition, at least for me, is Anne Carson's aphoristic study of eros in love, in writing, and simply in thinking:  Eros the Bittersweet.  I encountered this book late in my dissertation writing, so there's not much in my own book from hers, but it's been very useful for me over the years in the classroom and in some work on popular romance fiction.  (My first PCA talk on romance, for example, was a piece on Emma Holly called "Holly the Bittersweet.")

"It was Sappho who first called eros 'bittersweet,'" Carson's book begins.  "No one who has been in love disputes her.  What does the word mean?" (3).

Now, the "word in question here is "bittersweet," not Eros--she's trying to get at why "a simultaneity of pleasure and pain is at issue" in the experience of Eros, which strikes Sappho in many poems as "an enemy" (4), since "love and hate converge within erotic desire" (9).  Still, a few pages into the book, as she moves into her explanation of this convergence, Carson does give us a handy definition:

The Greek word eros denotes 'want,' 'lack,' 'desire for that which is missing.'  The lover wants what he does not have.  It is by definition impossible for him to have what he wants if, as soon as it is had, it is n longer wanting.  This is more than wordplay.  [...]  Plato turns and returns to it.  Four of his dialogues explore what it means to say that desire can only be for what is lacking, not at hand, not at present, not in one's possession nor in one's being.... (10) 

As Carson goes on to point out, the Greek idea of eros doesn't simply apply to interhuman desires; rather, it also applies to the desire to learn, to know, to understand.  "There would seem to be some resemblance," she writes, "between the way Eros acts in the mind of a lover and the way knowing acts in the mind of a thinker" (70).

The American poet and polymath Guy Davenport, in a review of Carson's book, glosses these ideas very nicely.

What's bittersweet is Eros, the god of falling in love (being in love is another matter, involving other, wiser gods).  Gods and states of mind are contiguous in Greek thought; eros is the Greek for that giddy, happy, all too often frustrated conviction that another human being's returned affection and equal longing for you are all that's lacking to make life a perfect happiness. ("Eros, His Intelligence," in The Hunter Gracchus, 137)

 [...]

It is the kinetics of desire that creates the euphoria of loving and of learning, of being alive.  We are largely ignorant of satisfied desire as the ancient Greeks understood it.  [...]  Satisfied desire is a fulfillment of some kind and as a subject belongs to housekeeping, child rearing, reverie; that is, to the world of order.  Desire and learning are by their nature disorderly, disruptive, agonizing:  bittersweet. (140)

You can probably already see why these ideas were useful to me in thinking about the many forms of "eros" in Holly's erotic romance.  The ideas of lack, of falling in love, of coming to know, and of the deferral of satisfaction (since that would mean the end of eros) all have implications at once for characters in a story and for the experience of reading one.  (Did I mention that we have a Call for Papers on Erotic Romance over at JPRS?  Would love to see some philosophical approaches in the mix.) 


OK, that's all I have time for now.  The last word goes to William Blake, who probably knew a thing or two about Eros and love.

A Question Answered

What is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

Nice little commentary on the quatrain, by Robert Pinsky, here.