The Beast and the Beauty: An Exegesis on Historical Romances

Abstract

There is no topic more discussed in literature, in all its genres and subgenres, than love and romance. It will be an arduous task to list at least ten novels that have no elements of love and romance in them. Every year more romantic comedies are released by film industries of every language. Similarly, more number of romance novels is released every year than the number of all other genres put together. There are romantic comedies, high school romances, historical romances, adult fiction etc. This article focuseson historical romances and how they portray the romance between a man and a woman. Most of the historical romances are appealing to the audience due to the ‘steamy’ way in which the scenes of sexual intercourse are recounted in them. Another specialty is the kind of characters, especially the protagonists in this genre. Most of these novels concentrate on picturing the English nobility of some period in royal England as the chief characters, with a “macho” male protagonist and a lady who is captivated by his manliness. This article tries to explore the reason why this trope continuously works in the modern society, which drums up for equality between man and woman in every sector. Why does a novel with a handsomely rugged hero and an enamored heroine still attract so many readers? Does every woman adore a fascist?