The word 'romance' was originally just a way to say "common speech"

Art · Published 18 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Before it described sweeping love affairs or heroic adventures, romance was a linguistic label for the vernacular. It marks a profound shift in history where the language of the people transformed into a sophisticated literary genre defined by rhetorical expansion and idealized worlds.

Originating from 'romanz', an Old French expression for 'the vulgar tongue' or 'the speech of the people', the word 'romance' stems from Latin 'Romanice'. This Latin term served to separate common vernacular prose from formal literary Latin. Over time, this linguistic label shifted from describing the medium of the work to the content itself, eventually specializing into a narrative composition characterized by chivalry and adventure.

While it has antecedents in classical Greek romances—which often featured lovers separated by accident or design—the distinctive medieval romance emerged in 12th-century France. It was shaped by aristocratic patrons like Eleanor of Aquitaine and developed through the 'romance style.' This style utilized rhetoric, a systematic study of oratory originally intended for lawyers and politicians, to expand on themes with elaborate descriptions of lavish surroundings, gold, silver, and technological marvels.

This evolution introduced a new psychological dimension to Western literature. By applying rhetorical devices to internal feelings, authors began portraying the 'doubts, hesitations, and self-torment' of lovers. This transition created a spectrum of meaning: in modern French, 'roman' simply means any novel; in English, it can refer to medieval narratives, idealized love affairs, or the act of making up stories with no connection to reality.

Today, the term is often split between two distinct types. One is the historical/archaic romance involving marvelous incidents and heroism—distinct from the realistic 'novel'—and the other is the modern genre fiction focused on sentimentalized love and marriage. Works like Wuthering Heights occupy a space where these two traditions overlap.

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