Characteristics of Romance Fiction in Relation to BH+KJA
Posted: 27 Jan 2013 19:54
I'm currently taking a Grad class on American literature, and we've just read The Last of the Mohicans. My instructor listed all the characteristics of the genre which Cooper's novel fell under, which is romance literature. Not romance as in love story, but as in ideal adventure story. (By the way, LotM also uses quotations at the beginning of each chapter, like our favorite Dune and Watership Down.) Since I recognize a few of these traits still being used in current pulp sci-fi, the Star Wars expanded universe novels, and the BH+KJA Dune continuations, I thought this might interest the rest of my sietch.
The characteristics of romance include:
*Action preferred to character.
*Action not restricted by reality.
*Allegorical/symbolic.
* 2-dimensional characters.
*Relations narrow, but deep (obsessional).
* Extraordinary, astonishing events.
*Characters embody single trait.
*Focus on now, cut off from the past, which explains isolation.
*Character is vehicle of plot.
*Modern Epic.
*Aspires to loftiness of poetry.
*Physical difference is exploited to grotesque.
*Very manipulated plot (i.e. Being constantly recaptured by villains).
* Contradiction resolved in melodrama or pastoral idyll.
All of these traits were taken out of James Fenimore Cooper's novels, Moby Dick, and The Scarlet Letter, but I'm amazed how a handful of these traits are used into current pulp sci-fi today. A couple of these traits Frank used (such as the grotesque physical difference, and focus on nature and isolation), but most of the traits I recognize in the current Dune series. BH+KJA don't write like Cooper or Melville, but their characters are limited, the relationships are narrow, and they often opt for melodramatic resolutions. Other sci-fi novels, especially Steve Alten's, have used a bunch of these traits. Twain's article on Cooper's "Literary Offenses" also applies to this kind of pulp fiction, but that's another matter.
That's about it.
The characteristics of romance include:
*Action preferred to character.
*Action not restricted by reality.
*Allegorical/symbolic.
* 2-dimensional characters.
*Relations narrow, but deep (obsessional).
* Extraordinary, astonishing events.
*Characters embody single trait.
*Focus on now, cut off from the past, which explains isolation.
*Character is vehicle of plot.
*Modern Epic.
*Aspires to loftiness of poetry.
*Physical difference is exploited to grotesque.
*Very manipulated plot (i.e. Being constantly recaptured by villains).
* Contradiction resolved in melodrama or pastoral idyll.
All of these traits were taken out of James Fenimore Cooper's novels, Moby Dick, and The Scarlet Letter, but I'm amazed how a handful of these traits are used into current pulp sci-fi today. A couple of these traits Frank used (such as the grotesque physical difference, and focus on nature and isolation), but most of the traits I recognize in the current Dune series. BH+KJA don't write like Cooper or Melville, but their characters are limited, the relationships are narrow, and they often opt for melodramatic resolutions. Other sci-fi novels, especially Steve Alten's, have used a bunch of these traits. Twain's article on Cooper's "Literary Offenses" also applies to this kind of pulp fiction, but that's another matter.
That's about it.