Since I awoke with Sunflower on my mind this morning (A common occurence!) my mind wandered to the word, "romance." How did the term for being a Roman citizen devolve into a word for a novel, then to a rough synonym for courtship and/or sexual relations? Personally, I much prefer the term, "twitter-pated," as expresed in Bambi!
Boy, I have a really positive view of the word "romance." "...a rough synonym for courtship and/or sexual relations?"? I don't think of it that way. When I think of romance, I envision soft music, sitting in front of a fire, talking softly and lovingly, drinking a fine glass of wine, and just lying in my honey's arms, as he caresses me. I don't think of "romance" as "sexual relations," and "courtship" just sounds so sterile. I get a real warm and fuzzy feeling when I think of "romance."
I love the word "romance." I would think of the meaning as evolving, not devolving.
This is fairly involved. Originally it seems to have been a distinction between 'Latin' and 'Roman', two forms of the same language: Roman was used for the common form of the language, Latin for the educated form used by priests and scholars. They eventually drifted apart so much that ordinary people (speakers of 'Roman') couldn't understand the version of Latin used in books and sermons.
This is what today we know as the incipient forms of Italian, French, Spanish, etc.
Even in Dante's time they didn't distinguish clearly between them as different languages, only as different vernaculars compared to the book form: books were still in Latin, but the common people were considered as speaking regional varieties (of France, Provence, Tuscany, etc.).
Come the troubadours and the Arthurian tale-tellers, and they started writing down popular stories not in Latin but in the local vernaculars: in 'Roman' or 'Romance'.
Thus a Romance story came to be one of these, full of knights and ladies and courtly love; and in French a roman is a novel.
I'm familiar with all that you've said, aput, but how did it come to connote what Kaleh feels is its meaning nowadays? In the romances of medieval times, they were really tragedies, since the object of the hero's desire was always out of reach, untouchable. From THIS we get soft lights and snuggles?!?!
Actually it is an interesting specialization, since it must be quite recent: until well into the twentieth century a romance was an adventure in out-of-the-way places, or in wild and stirring scenery, probably with a love story running through it. I wonder if Mills and Boon or some such imprint were responsible for narrowing the current sense, calling their works romance novels or romances: perhaps at first they used it for canonical romantic/gothic plots (à la Wuthering Heights) then it was extended to all their love stories. The narrowed sense is so recent it's not in my old SOED (1950s).
Asa, you had said this is Kalleh's idea of the meaning of "romance," and I was just citing the AHD definition.
This is a very interesting discussion...what a great question, Asa! Here is what Etymology online says of "romance:"
"c.1300, "story of a hero's adventures," also (c.1330), "vernacular language of France" (as opposed to Latin), from O.Fr. romanz "verse narrative," originally an adverb, "in the vernacular language," from V.L. *romanice scribere "to write in a Romance language" (one developed from Latin instead of Frankish), from L. Romanicus "of or in the Roman style," from Romanus "Roman" (see Roman). The connecting notion is that medieval vernacular tales were usually about chivalric adventure. Literary sense extended by 1667 to "a love story." Extended 1612 to other modern languages derived from Latin (Spanish, Italian, etc.). Meaning "adventurous quality" first recorded 1801; that of "love affair, idealistic quality" is from 1916. The verb meaning "court as a lover" is from 1942."
The idea of romance in literature dates back to France in the early 12th century and were narrative poems written in light octosyllabic couplets that kept the story going at a good pace. They were most notable for their taste for the marvellous and fabulous. The association with France no doubt helped to introduce them to the ruling classes in England and in that way began to be associated with chivalry and subsequently romance as we understand it today. It probably tells us alot about modern romance, and probably men in particular, that my dictionary defines romance as 'To exaggerate or invent after the fashion of romances; to talk hyperbolically.'
