Historical Romance Fiction: Heterosexuality and PerformativityRoutledge, 2016 M04 22 - 186 pages The first book-length study of romance novels to focus on issues of sexuality rather than gender, Historical Romance Fiction moves the ongoing debate about the value and appeal of heterosexual romance onto new ground, testing the claims of cutting-edge critical theorists on everything from popular classics by Georgette Heyer, to recent 'bodice rippers,' to historical fiction by John Fowles and A.S. Byatt. Beginning with her nomination of 'I love you' as the romance novel's defining speech act, Lisa Fletcher engages closely with speech-act theory and recent studies of performativity. The range of texts serves to illustrate Fletcher's definition of historical romance as a fictional mode dependent on the force and familiarity of the speech act, 'I love you', and permits Fletcher to provide a detailed account of the genre's history and development in both its popular and 'literary' manifestations. Written from a feminist and anti-homophobic perspective, Fletcher's subtle arguments about the romantic speech act serve to demonstrate the genre's dependence on repetition ('Romance can only quote') and the shaky ground on which the romance's heterosexual premise rests. Her exploration of the subgenre of cross-dressing novels is especially revealing in this regard. With its deft mix of theoretical arguments and suggestive close readings, Fletcher's book will appeal to specialists in genre, speech act and performativity theory, and gender studies. |
Contents
Romance History Heterosexuality | |
Georgette Heyer | |
Judith Butler and the Cross | |
History and Heterosexuality in John Fowless | |
Affective Speech Acts in The French | |
A S Byatts Possession | |
Works Cited | |
Other editions - View all
Historical Romance Fiction: Heterosexuality and Performativity Dr Lisa Fletcher Limited preview - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
A.S. Byatt analysis argues Ash and LaMotte Austin Avon Barbara Cartland Belsey Butler Byatt chapter characterization characters Charles Charles’s Christabel citationality confession context costume critical cross crossdressing novels culture describes desire discourse discussion disguise dressing Eco’s Elam Elam’s Ernestina extent feminine focus Fowles Fowles’s French Lieutenant’s Woman gender genre’s Georgette Heyer happy ending Henry James’s hero heroine heroine’s heteronormative heterosexual hegemony heterosexual love heterosexual romance Heyer’s Heyer’s novels historical romance fiction historical romance novels idea imagined insists interpellation J.L. Austin John Fowles Léon literary masculine masquerade Maud narrative narrator norms Old Shades plot popular fiction popular historical romance popular romance Possession postmodernism precisely promise question readers relationship Roland romance genre romantic speech act Sarah say I love scene secrecy Sedgwick selfconscious sense sexuality shame Sir Anthony subgenre suggests texts theories of performativity Things with Words transvestism truth Undoing Gender utterance Victorian writes