Romance (literature)

Romance (literature), literary genre popular in the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century), dealing, in verse or prose, with legendary, supernatural, or amorous subjects and characters. The name refers to Romance languages and originally denoted any lengthy composition in one of those languages. Later the term was applied to tales specifically concerned with knights, chivalry, and courtly love. The romance and the epic are similar forms, but epics tend to be longer and less concerned with courtly love.

Romances began to appear in western Europe in the 12th century and reached their greatest popularity in the late 13th century; they remained in vogue until the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century). At first, they were related orally by troubadours and trouvères. Subsequently, they were written by court musicians, clerics, scribes, and aristocrats for the entertainment and moral edification of the nobility. Popular subjects for romances included the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, King Arthur of Britain and the knights of the Round Table, and the Frankish emperor Charlemagne. The Arthurian romances fall into three broad groups (see Arthurian Legend). Some, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (anonymous, late 1300s), are tales that involve the moral testing of a young knight. Others, such as Tristan und Isolt (1210) by the German poet Gottfried von Strassburg, describe the conflict between passion and duty. The third group, exemplified by the romance Percival, or the Story of the Grail (1190?) by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes, is concerned with the search for the Holy Grail.

Some romances were linked to ballads. Aucassin and Nicolette (anonymous, 13th century), one such chant-fable, or song-story, is about two young lovers. Romances also often had their basis in classical legends. Sir Orfeo (1480?) by the Italian poet Politian, for example, recounts the Orpheus and Eurydice story from Greek mythology but places it in a medieval setting. Eventually, a tradition of sophisticated contemporary romances developed, typified by the 13th-century French poem Le Roman de la Rose. This dream allegory, based on the courtly love traditions of the time, contains little history or legend.

Later prose and verse narratives, particularly those in the 19th-century romantic tradition, are also referred to as romances; set in distant or mythological places and times, like most romances they stress adventure and supernatural elements.