Culture · 6 pages · 12 min
How a novel differs from a romance in the old sense
The older romance licenses wonder, while the novel binds itself to the probable.
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From the opening
In an older literary sense, a romance is a narrative of adventure and the marvelous, while a novel is a long fiction that asks to be read as a probable account of particular people in social life. The difference is a contract about what kinds of events the prose owes you, not a difference in quality or in how much love the story contains. The opening covers what the old romance licenses, what the novel binds itself to, and why the love-plot sense is later.
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Inside
- What the old romance licenses
- What the novel binds itself to
- Why the love-plot sense is later
- How mixed books stretch the map
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- The older contrast between romance and the novel
- Probability of social life versus license for the marvelous