Dangerous Men & Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance (New Cultural Studies)

200 Pages·1992·0.75 MB·English

by  Jayne Ann Krentz

DANGEROUS MEN "Some of the writers collected here have
read virtually all of the significant books on
romance that have appeared in the last ten
years or so, evaluated the claims made by
and ADVENTUROUS
their feminist authors in highly critical fashion
and yet insisted on claiming the term
'feminist' for their own literary efforts. This,
WOMEN in itself, is a highly useful piece of informa-
tion for it demonstrates that romances cannot
simply be labelled reactionary anti-feminism,
as some critics have claimed, but rather must
be evaluated as part of a larger cultural
ROMANCE WRITERS ON THE
struggle over the proper way to define femi-
APPEAL OF THE ROMANCE nism and to control its impact on the lives of
individual women. . . . This book will interest
Edited by Jayne Ann Krentz feminist literary and media critics as primary
source material for their efforts to understand
the impact of the romance genre. ... It
In Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, demonstrates eloquently that thinking about
Jayne Ann Krentz and the contributors to this the contemporary state of culture goes on
volume—all best-selling romance novelists— beyond the ivory tower and that it is
explode the myths and biases that haunt both cohesive and compelling"—Janice Radway.
the writers and readers of romances.
In this seamless, ultimately fascinating, and
A volume in the New Cultural Studies series.
controversial book, the authors dispute some
of the notions that plague their profession,
JAYNE ANN KRENTZ (Amanda Quick, Jayne
including the time-worn theory that the
Castle, Stephanie James) has written and
romance genre contains only one single,
published more than fifty series romances for
monolithic story, which is cranked out over
several publishers including Harlequin,
and over again. The authors also discuss
Silhouette, and Dell. Currently she writes
positive, life-affirming values inherent in all
contemporary romances for Pocket Books
romances: the celebration of female power,
under her own name and historical romances
courage, intelligence, and gentleness; the
for Bantam under the pen name Amanda
inversion of the power structure of a
Quick. Several of her contemporary and
patriarchal society; and the integration of
historical titles, including Scandal,
male and female. Several of the essays also
Rendezvous, Sweet Fortune, and Perfect
discuss the issue of reader identification with
Partners, appeared on the New York Times
the characters, a relationship that is far more
bestseller list.
complex than most critics realize.
Romances are, to some extent, written in a
code that carries allusions to ancient myths
University of Pennsylvania Press
as well as to classic and contemporary
418 Service Drive
romances. Critics and readers who frequent-
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6097
ly dismiss romances as poorly written or
unimagjnative simply do not understand the
encoded information in the text. Even the
essays in this volume are, to some extent,
locked in code. Thoughtful readers of the
essays will have to abandon some of the
conventional critical assumptions in favor of
other perspectives if they wish to comprehend
much of what is said here about the nature of
the appeal of the romance novel.
University of Pennsylvania Press
NEW CULTURAL STUDIES
Joan DeJean, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg,
and Peter Stallybrass, Editors
A complete listing of the books in this series appears at the back of
this volume
Romance
Writers
on the
Appeal
Dangerous Men &
Adventurous Women
of the
Romance
EDITED BY
Jayne Ann
Krentz
UNIVERSITY OF
PENNSYLVANIA
PRESS Upp
Philadelphia
Copyright © 1992 by the University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dangerous men & adventurous women : romance writers on the appeal of the
romance / edited by Jayne Ann Krentz.
p. cm. — (New cultural studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8122-3192-9 (cloth). — ISBN 0-8122-1411-0 (pbk.)
1. Love stories, American—History and criticism. 2. Women—United
States—Books and reading. 3. Authors and readers—United States. 4. Love
stories—Appreciation. 5. Sex role in literature. I. Krentz, Jayne Ann.
II. Title: Dangerous men and adventurous women. III. Series.
PS374.L6D3 1992
813'. 08509—dc20 92-22665
CIP
For Patricia Reynolds Smith,
an editor with vision.
Her love of the romance novel
together with her dedication
to scholarly publishing
transformed this book
from dream to reality.
Contents
xi Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
JAYNE ANN KRENTZ
2 Setting the Stage: Facts and Figures
CATHIE LINZ
15 Beneath the Surface: The Hidden Codes of Romance
LINDA BARLOW AND JAYNE ANN KRENTZ
31 The Androgynous Reader:
Point of View in the Romance
LAURA KINSALE
45 The Androgynous Writer:
Another View of Point of View
LINDA BARLOW
53 The Romance and the Empowerment of Women
SUSAN ELIZABETH PHILLIPS
61 Sweet Subversions
DAPHNE CLAIR
Contents
viii
73 Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know:
The Hero as Challenge
DOREEN OWENS MALEK
81 Mean, Moody, and Magnificent:
The Hero in Romance Literature
ROBYN DONALD
85 Legends of Seductive Elegance
ANNE STUART
89 Love Conquers All:
The Warrior Hero and the Affirmation of Love
ELIZABETH LOWELL
99 Welcome to the Dark Side
MARY JO PUTNEY
107 Trying to Tame the Romance:
Critics and Correctness
JAYNE ANN KRENTZ
115 Loved I Not Honor More:
The Virginal Heroine in Romance
DOREEN OWENS MALEK
121 Making a Choice: Virginity in the Romance
BRITTANY YOUNG
125 By Honor Bound: The Heroine as Hero
PENELOPE WILLIAMSON
133 Women Do
JUDITH ARNOLD
141 Moments of Power
STELLA CAMERON
Contents
ix
145 The Risk of Seduction and
the Seduction of Risk
SANDRA BROWN
151 Happily Ever After: The Ending as Beginning
SUZANNE SIMMONS GUNTRUM
155 Let Me Tell You About My Readers
DIANA PALMER
159 Judge Me by the Joy I Bring
KATHLEEN GILLES SEIDEL
181 Bibliography
183 Index