Rebecca Resinski (Hendrix College)
Although researchers have examined the reception of Greco-Roman antiquity in a range of popular media, including movies, videogames, comics, science fiction, fantasy, and children's literature, romance novels have not garnered their attention. Romantic fiction constitutes a substantial segment of the publishing industry--up to one-third of mass-market paperbacks and more than one-third of ebooks (Rodale 2015)--and in overlooking romance, scholars of classical reception miss the opportunity to explore how millions of readers encounter classics and how romance novels and authors model dynamic, meaningful engagement with the ancient world and its persistent cultural influence.
This paper focuses on uses of classics in romance novels published in the 21st century but set in 18th or 19th century Britain. Within this subgenre we find: 1) classically informed similes offering a shared lens for viewing characters or situations; 2) references to ancient languages and art grounding the novels in genteel British society of the time; 3) classically resonant names reinforcing character traits or inviting comparison with ancient figures; 4) knowledge of classics marking social status and gender; 5) expertise in classics providing a means for women to work outside their prescribed sphere and meet men on a more equal footing; 6) classics heightening humor, eroticism, and mystery; 7) classics enabling self-discovery and relationship but also serving as a step to be moved beyond; 8) mythological narratives being referenced and subverted; and 9) classical texts being cited or adapted in order to authorize happy endings.
Each of these categories will be illustrated with specific examples from prominent romance authors, and the delineation of the categories themselves is the result of a survey of over one hundred novels. The size of the survey and the steady appearance of classics in the novels suggest that the invocation of classical elements is a convention of this romantic subgenre. But the uses of classics are also varied enough to demonstrate that it is a convention which leaves ample room for individual choice. Authors differ in their deployments of classics, and they enlist classics in ways that make sense for particular contexts and characters. In romance, classics can both represent and push against the status quo; it can help or hinder characters' movements toward the self-understanding and fulfillment that are hallmarks of the genre.
The long-standing debate about romance's support or subversion of patriarchy involves problematic, behaviorist assumptions about romance readers and is ultimately unproductive (Thomas 2012). Regis (2003) and Roach (2016) instead propose that romance maps the terrain of patriarchy and its pitfalls as characters navigate its challenges and work both within and against its parameters. While Regis and Roach do not consider romance's uses of classics, their proposals can be transposed to the register of classical reception. Authors and characters engage the classical world and its complex legacy in ongoing, varied, and ambivalent ways. Romance reminds readers that their relationship with the past is a mutually constitutive process of active, shifting, and never-ending negotiations in the light of the present and with a view to the future.