3 pre- to post-romance: issues of definition & evolution of the genre
Section outline
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In this block of sessions we will explore a new romance mode - the type of narrative taken over from late Greek novel. This will lead to a new exploration of the constituent features of romance.
We will also see how the narrative is retold before, in and after the period in which the chivalric romance, explored so far, got constituted, and how the idea of "what is romance" evolves in time.The first session will be devoted to a text that has been repeatedly labelled as the first romance in English, translated from a Latin original way before the concepts of chivalry and courtoisie started to consolidate: the Old English Apollonius of Tyre.
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You may wish to compare this narrative, a very popular one in the High Middle Ages, with Apollonius as regards leading concerns, themes etc.