Romance: Lovey-dovey or that other kind?

What does the word "romance" mean to you?

a. "a medieval narrative"

b. "a Spanish historical ballad"

c. "a fictitious narrative . . . in which . . . the events depicted are remote from everyday life"

d. "a romantic relationship"

(All definitions come from the OED)

from epSos.de

After a discussion about whether romance or tragedy is more true to life in class, I realized that the idea can spark a lot of conversation.  I think it's worth pursuing.  Because we each handle life with a different perspective and cope with hard things in a different way, each person has thoughts about whether there are more tragic, or happy and unexpected, elements to life.

Kara commented in class on how people watch romantic movies because the movies aren't true to life and that made me think about the history of the word "romance."  I wonder if there's more of a thesis to be explored if I come at "romance" from a romantic love perspective or if this is a sign that I'll need to specify which type of romance I'm talking about in my paper.  I think the second is definitely true.

Dr. Burton described the romance of The Winter's Tale as:

from Moyan_Brenn

• more unrealistic
• legends, animated cartoons
• lack of verisimilitude in the world
• but with characters realistic in their psychological aspects

I think if I decide to argue that romances are, unexpectedly, more true to life, I'll definitely talk about characters who are realistic and a world that is, seemingly, unrealistic, but actually more like our world than a tragic one.  As someone pointed out in our discussion during last class period, in tragedy, everyone can be dead within two weeks.  I mean, maybe sometimes that happens in real life, but I think more often women supposedly come back from the dead or a man dies by a tragic bear attack.