Dictionary:

romance

  (rō-măns', rō'măns')

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1. 1. A love affair.
   2. Ardent emotional attachment or involvement between people; love: They kept the romance alive in their marriage for 35 years.
   3. 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).
3. 1. A long medieval narrative in prose or verse that tells of the adventures and heroic exploits of chivalric heroes: an Arthurian romance.
   2. A long fictitious tale of heroes and extraordinary or mysterious events, usually set in a distant time or place.
   3. The class of literature constituted by such tales.
4. 1. An artistic work, such as a novel, story, or film, that deals with sexual love, especially in an idealized form.
   2. The class or style of such works.
5. A fictitiously embellished account or explanation: We have been given speculation and romance instead of the facts.
6. Music. A lyrical, tender, usually sentimental song or short instrumental piece.
7. Romance The Romance languages.

Romance Of, relating to, or being any of the languages that developed from Latin, including Italian, French, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish.

1. To invent, write, or tell romances.
2. To think or behave in a romantic manner.

1. To make love to; court or woo.
2. To have a love affair with.

[Middle English, from Old French romans, romance, work written in French, from Vulgar Latin *rōmānicē (scrībere), (to write) in the vernacular, from Latin Rōmānicus, Roman, from Rōmānus. See Roman.]

Romance (1913), a play by Edward Sheldon. [Maxine Elliott's Theatre, 160 perf.] Harry Putnam (George Le Soir), who is reluctant to tell his grandfather, Bishop Armstrong (William Courtenay), that he is engaged to an artist, is surprised when the bishop tells him his own history. The bishop recounts how, many years before, the rage of New York had been the great diva Margherita Cavallini (Doris Keane), and how, as the new rector of St. Giles, he had been invited to meet her at a fashionable soiree where he fell in love instantly. Later Armstrong was revolted to learn she had been a man's mistress, but his love was such that he forced himself to overlook her past. Cavallini, however, realized their worlds were far apart, and though she loved him, walked out of his life to allow him to continue his calling. As the bishop finishes his story, he is brought the evening paper, which announces Cavallini's death. After Harry has gone, he pulls from his pocket some faded violets and a woman's handkerchief. One of the greatest successes of its decade, it held the stage with some regularity for more than a dozen years. A musical version, My Romance (1948), failed, despite a pleasing Sigmund Romberg score.

noun

1. An intimate sexual relationship between two people: affair, amour, love, love affair. See love/hatred, sex/asexual.
2. The passionate affection and desire felt by lovers for each other: amorousness, fancy, love, passion. See love/hatred, sex/asexual.
3. A strong, enthusiastic liking for something: love, love affair, passion. See love/hatred.

verb

To attempt to gain the affection of: court, pursue, spark², woo. See seek/avoid, sex/asexual.

From the 15th century, romance in Spain and romanza in Italy have nearly always signified a ballad. The narrative romance was, next to the villancico, the most popular song-type in Spanish-speaking countries. Over 50 settings of romance tunes of 1450-1550 survive. Up to the mid-16th century they were probably sung mostly at court as three- or four-part choruses or as solo songs with lute. After c1550 a new type of romance with a refrain was taken up and by 1630 the romance was virtually indistinguishable from the villancico.

From the early 18th century ‘romance’ in France and ‘Romanze’in Germany were used for extravagant, sentimental or ‘romantic’ tales. The romance was ideally suited to the sentimental vein of opéra comique and to drawing-room performance. Such German poets as Herder, Goethe and Schiller provided texts and the Romanze, with its folksong elements, became a feature in the Singspiel.

The vocal romance was often imitated in instrumental slow movements of a simple, lyrical character. The romance of Mozart's Piano Concerto k466 and Beethoven's two Romanzen for violin and orchestra opp. 40 and 50 exemplify the genre's lyric capabilities. In the 19th century the term was used for small character-pieces, for example Schumann's Drei Romanzen op.28.

romance, a fictional story in verse or prose that relates improbable adventures of idealized characters in some remote or enchanted setting; or, more generally, a tendency in fiction opposite to that of realism. The term now embraces many forms of fiction from the Gothic novel and the popular escapist love story to the ‘scientific romances’ of H. G. Wells, but it usually refers to the tales of King Arthur's knights written in the late Middle Ages by Chrétien de Troyes (in verse), Sir Thomas Malory (in prose), and many others (see chivalric romance). Medieval romance is distinguished from epic by its concentration on courtly love rather than warlike heroism. Long, elaborate romances were written during the Renaissance, including Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1532), Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590–6), and Sir Philip Sidney's prose romance Arcadia (1590), but Cervantes's parody of romances in Don Quixote (1605) helped to undermine this tradition. Later prose romances differ from novels in their preference for allegory and psychological exploration rather than realistic social observation, especially in American works like Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance (1852). Several modern literary genres, from science fiction to the detective story, can be regarded as variants of the romance (see also fantasy, marvellous). In modern criticism of Shakespeare, the term is also applied to four of his last plays—Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest—which are distinguished by their daring use of magical illusion and improbable reunions. The Romance languages are those languages originating in southern Europe that are derived from Latin: the most important of these are Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. In Spanish literature, the term has a special sense, the romance [ro‐mahn‐thay] being a ballad composed in octosyllabic lines. Forafuller account, consult Gillian Beer, The Romance (1970).

For more information on romance, visit Britannica.com.

Term used in English-language criticism of French literature for the roman courtois, or courtly romance, a narrative genre that flourished in the 12th and 13th c., first in verse and then in prose, and continued in various transformations throughout the Middle Ages. In Old French, romanz meant the vernacular, and the expression ‘metre en roman’ implied translation from Latin. As the first vernacular fictions treating the conflict between love and social obligations, these fictions are forerunners of the roman, the novel.

I. Verse Romances

The first romances, the romans d'antiquité, dating from 1150-65, were translations or adaptations of Latin epics into octosyllabic couplets; the anonymous Roman de Thèbes and Roman d'Enéas, and Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie are remarkable for their amplification of description, their focus on individual characters, and particularly for the importance accorded to love and female characters. In addition, Latin accounts of the life of Alexander the Great inspired various Alexander romances, of which the most notable was written in 12-syllable lines, later called alexandrines. The romans d'antiquité, and other early works such as Floire et Blancheflore, Marie de France's Lais, and Thomas's Tristan, evidence the public's taste for amorous conflicts, love casuistry, and description of social life and material surroundings.

Factors that fostered romance's development in Anglo-Norman England and on the Continent from 1160 to 1300 were the refinement and expansion of court life in a period of relative peace, the rise of the vernacular as a literary language, the emergence of a class of educated clerics, the presence of noblewomen as well as knights among the court audience, and the nobility's desire to define their social superiority. Early romances were written to be read orally before an assembled court audience; some are dedicated to a noble male or female patron. Beginning in the 13th c., works were increasingly written in prose or adapted from verse into prose. Romances were copied in manuscript compilations, sometimes grouped around a discernible theme or interest. Little is known about early romance authors, who were often anonymous; they were probably Church-educated male clerks who exercised a secular function at court.

Romance authors drew their material freely and inventively not only from Latin historiography, hagiography, rhetoric, sermons, and the Bible, but also from the chansons de geste and from popular legends and folk-tales. Writers took pride in their ability to transform conventional materials in new ways. As contrasted with the epic, or chanson de geste, romance focused on the inner dilemma or quest of an individual knight, rather than on collective conflicts; it highlighted sentimental as well as chivalric education; its central conflict was often that of knightly duty versus private desire. Although women figured more prominently in romance than in epic, they were usually objects of the hero's quest rather than agents. None the less, many female characters display pragmatism, intelligence, and a capacity to manipulate situations through verbal wit or clever ruses.

If the epic narrator was often a spokesman for communally shared values, the verse romance narrator was an individual observer who commented on his craft and his subject-matter. Many romances are sophisticated literary artefacts that refer self-consciously to other works. Fantastic settings, marvellous objects and beasts, and supernatural events often spice these tales and heighten their mysterious charm. None the less, despite their idealized landscapes, romances, like the chansons de geste, invited their audience to reflect on serious social and moral problems.

In the last third of the 12th c. Chrétien de Troyes wrote the first surviving full-length Arthurian fiction, Erec et Enide, which was followed by four other romances. Chrétien inaugurated a vogue for Arthurian fiction that would expand throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and revive in the 19th c. [see Matière de Bretagne]. His brilliant characterizations, harmonious structures, pointed irony, and rhetorical wit fostered his readers' reflection and inspired many imitators and continuators.

Verse romance after Chrétien was remarkably diverse. Non-Arthurian romances explored the themes of love and chivalry in modes that ranged from the parodic, as in Hue de Rotelande's Ipomedon (12th c.) [see Anglo-Norman Literature, 3a], or the lyrical, as in Partonopeu de Blois (12th c.), or the marvellous, as in Adenet le Roi's Cléomadès (13th c.). Arthurian romances were equally varied in stance. Raoul de Houdenc's Meraugis de Portlesguez ingeniously replayed Chrétien's comic possibilities; Renaut de Beaujeu's Le Bel Inconnu explored the quest for love and identity in a magical fairy world. A spate of narratives followed Gauvain as hero. The intriguing Roman de Silence described the adventures of a woman disguised as a knight. Four verse continuations of Chrétien's Conte du graal (Perceval) [see Grail Romances] recounted the further adventures of Perceval and Gauvain. It is impossible to discern a single ideological bent in the rich variety of 13th-c. romances. Some were frankly misogynistic (Raoul de Houdenc's La Vengeance Raguidel, Le Chevalier à l'Epée), others burlesqued courtly conventions ( Joufroi de Poitiers, the chantefable Aucassin et Nicolette), while romances such as Durmart le Gallois attempted to preserve chivalric values.

Other 13th-c. romances have been dubbed ‘romans réalistes’ because of their contemporary geographical setting, historical figures, realistic descriptions, and absence of marvellous events; these include the romances of Jean Renart, Jakemes's Le Roman du Castelain de Coucy et de la Dame de Fayel [see Chastelain De Couci], and Gerbert de Montreuil's Le Roman de la Violette. Not infrequently, these romances analyse the plight of women as victims of the chivalric code of honour or, as in Philippe de Beaumanoir's Manekine, as objects of incestuous desire; women in these stories excel as virtuous heroines or plucky survivors.

Another kind of roman written in octosyllabic couplets was the dream allegory, of which the most influential was the Roman de la Rose, begun by Guillaume de Lorris in a lyrical mode and terminated in a tenor of scholastic debate by Jean de Meun [see also Roman de la Poire]. Perhaps as a result of the Rose, an important 13th-c. stylistic development was the inclusion of lyric poems into the narrative frame, as in Jean Renart's Guillaume de Dole or Jakemes's Castelain de Coucy; in the latter, the romancer mirrors the stance of a lyric poet by addressing a beloved female reader.

2. Prose Romances

A major shift in the genre's evolution came in the 13th c. with the increasing use of prose for many works, as evidenced strikingly in the prose romances of the so-called Vulgate cycle (the Lancelot and Grail romances and the prose Tristan). This monumental summa of Arthurian history combined Chrétien's Lancelot and Conte du Graal, and explored further the problems raised in them. It created an intricate interweaving of episodes that pursued a multiplicity of characters to their predestined fate; it deepened the conflict between earthly and spiritual values latent in Chrétien; and it created a vast, totalizing cycle that merged Christian and Arthurian history. The Vulgate texts claimed to tell a more profound ‘truth’ than verse even as they displayed a heightened sense of their status as fiction. The ‘je’ of verse narration was replaced by ‘li conte’ as the story-teller; marvellous events were rationalized and Christianized; in works like the Queste del Saint Graal, a moralizing tone prevailed. The shift from verse to prose implied a shift from aural audience at a performance to private reading of a book; manuscripts were more lavishly illuminated for their owners.

Verse romances continued to be produced throughout the 13th c. and into the 14th; Froissart's Meliador (1383-8) was the last Arthurian verse romance. But by the end of the 14th c. prose was the predominant form, as evidenced by the proliferation of new prose works and of mises en prose, which were adaptations of by-now archaic verse romances (Cligés, Erec, Tristan). The courts of Burgundy and of Anjou were important centres of late-medieval romance production. In the wake of disastrous losses during the Hundred Years War, chivalric exploits lost their transcendent ideological purpose. Critics speak of moral and aesthetic decline in some 14th- and early 15th-c. chivalric romances, where the episode or motif is presented as a pleasurable surface rather than as a meaningful element in a significant whole. Lengthy romances such as the prose Perceforest concentrate more on the collective group of Arthurian knights than on a predestined individual. Lacking the critical angle of their predecessors, late romances tend to project an illusory image of an idealized past.

In the 15th c. a new mode of prose narrative emerged in the nouvelle, a brief tale with a contemporary setting and worldly ethic, whose humour was sometimes the vehicle for a more critical, even cynical vision, as in the earlier verse fabliaux. The shift has been detected in the materialism and uncourtliness of Antoine de la Sale's transitional Jehan de Saintré, which was ostensibly the story of a ‘vaillant chevalier’. The taste for short comic tales was confirmed by the compilation of Les Cent Nouvelles nouvelles for Philippe le Bon of Burgundy by an unknown redactor [see Short Fiction].

Old French romances transmitted their tales of love and chivalry throughout European national literatures by means of translations and adaptations; their new concern for subjectivity was a major step in the evolution of fiction. If the excesses of late chivalric romance [see Amadis de Gaule] were parodied by Cervantes and others, the aristocratic public's taste for lengthy pseudo-historical narratives of love and adventure continued in the 17th-c. romans héroïques of La Calprenède and Madeleine de Scudéry. Arthurian themes revived in the 19th c., especially in England, and are still alive in literature and film (e.g., in France, Bresson's Lancelot and Rohmer's faithful adaptation of Chrétien's Perceval). Any popular fiction relating adventures in a fantasy world or an idealized past might be considered a distant heir of romance; closer in spirit is Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes, which uses a dream-like setting to explore an adolescent sentimental crisis. But modern popular fantasies do not as a rule reflect the social concerns of their audience, as did so many of their medieval French counterparts. The critical social function of courtly romance ended with the waning of feudal society; what remains is the persistent desire to imagine another world.

[Roberta Krueger]

Bibliography

• J. Frappier and R. R. Grimm (eds.), Le Roman jusqu'à la fin du XIIIe siècle, in Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, ed. H. R. Jauss and E. Kohler, IV (1978)
• N. Lacy, D. Kelly, and K. Busby (eds.), The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes (1987-8)
• D. Poirion (ed.), La Littérature française aux XIVe et XVe siècles, in Grundriss, VIII (1988)

In traditional literary terms, a narration of the extraordinary exploits of heroes, often in exotic or mysterious settings. Most of the stories of King Arthur and his knights are romances.

The term romance has also been used for stories of mysterious adventures, not necessarily of heroes. Like the heroic kind of romance, however, these adventure romances usually are set in distant places. William Shakespeare's play The Tempest is this kind of romance.

Today, a novel concerned mainly with love is often called a romance. Romances are frequently published in paperback series.

Formerly a medieval tale in mixed prose and verse describing marvelous adventures of a hero of chivalry, it later came to mean a short lyric poem.

n.

Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, as a domestic horse to the hitching-post, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination -- free, lawless, immune to bit and rein. Your novelist is a poor creature, as Carlyle might say -- a mere reporter. He may invent his characters and plot, but he must not imagine anything taking place that might not occur, albeit his entire narrative is candidly a lie. Why he imposes this hard condition on himself, and "drags at each remove a lengthening chain" of his own forging he can explain in ten thick volumes without illuminating by so much as a candle's ray the black profound of his own ignorance of the matter. There are great novels, for great writers have "laid waste their powers" to write them, but it remains true that far and away the most fascinating fiction that we have is "The Thousand and One Nights."

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - romance, kærlighedsaffære, overdrivelse, røverhistorie
v. intr. - fantasere, overdrive
v. tr. - sværme for, gøre kur til
adj. - romantisk

n. - romanske sprog
adj. - romansk

Nederlands (Dutch)
romantiek, liefdesroman, romance, romantisch, Romaans, fantaseren, avances maken

Français (French)
n. - charme, côté romantique, histoire d'amour, roman d'amour, film d'amour, roman de cape et d'épée, (Littérat) roman du Moyen-âge, pièce romanesque, (Mus) romance
v. intr. - écrire des romans d'amour, idéaliser
v. tr. - courtiser, avoir une histoire d'amour avec
adj. - du roman

n. - Roman
adj. - (Ling) roman

Deutsch (German)
n. - Romantik, Romanisch, Romanze, Liebesgeschichte
v. - übertreiben, den Hof machen
adj. - romanisch, romanzenhaft, abenteuerlich

n. - Romanisch

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - ρομάντζο, ειδύλλιο, αίσθημα, ρομάντζο (ρομαντικό διήγημα, ιστορία ή ποίημα), μυστηριώδη θέλγητρα, (μουσ.) ρομάντζα
v. - υπερβάλλω, φαντασιολογώ, μυθιστορηματοποιώ

Italiano (Italian)
romanza, romanzo, relazione amorosa, romanzo rosa

Português (Portuguese)
n. - romance (m), aventura (f), fascínio (m)
v. - exagerar, fantasiar

Русский (Russian)
роман, романский (язык), романтика, романс, фантазировать, ухаживать

Español (Spanish)
n. - idilio, libro de aventuras o de caballería, romance, novela, interés, emoción
v. intr. - escribir novelas, contar novelas , pensar o hablar de un modo romántico o novelesco
v. tr. - cortejar
adj. - caballeresco

n. - Romance
adj. - neolatino

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - romantik, romans, riddarroman, rövarhistoria
v. - svärma, fabulera

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
罗曼语, 拉丁系语言, 罗曼语的, 拉丁系语言的

冒险故事, 传奇文学, 浪漫史, 写传奇, 虚构, 渲染, 向...求爱, 追求, 浪漫色彩的

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 羅曼語, 拉丁系語言
adj. - 羅曼語的, 拉丁系語言的

n. - 冒險故事, 傳奇文學, 浪漫史
v. intr. - 寫傳奇, 虛構, 渲染
v. tr. - 向...求愛, 追求
adj. - 浪漫色彩的

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 가공적인 이야기, 연애이야기, 로맨스
v. intr. - 꾸며낸 이야기를 하다, 공상 소설을 만들다, 공상에 잠기다
v. tr. - 가공으로 만들어 내다, 환심을 사다, ~에 구애하다
adj. - 로망스어의, 라틴계 언어의

n. - 로맨스, 중세의 기사 이야기, 전기적인 분위기
adj. - 로망스 말의

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 恋愛, 小説的な事件, ロマンス小説, 伝奇的雰囲気, 空想好き, 中世の騎士物語, 作り話, 現実離れした世界, 伝奇物語, 恋愛小説
v. - 作り話をする, 恋仲になる, 言い寄る

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) قصه شعريه أو نثريه عن الحب, روايه غراميه (فعل) يفكر أو يتحدث بلغه عاطفيه, يبالغ, يمثل قصه حب عنيفه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮זמר או סיפור עממי על גבורה ואהבה, פרשת אהבים, עלילת אהבה, הרפתקה, רומן, רומנסה, גוזמה‬
v. intr. - ‮דמיין, הגזים, תיבל בשקרים‬
v. tr. - ‮ניהל רומן, החניף‬
adj. - ‮של פרשת אהבים, של רומנסה‬
n. - ‮השפות הלטיניות‬
adj. - ‮של כל אחת מהשפות שהתפתחו מלטינית‬

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