Abstract
This essay looks at the interconnections between the cultural industry of popular romance and best-selling novels set in an Irish historical context. In particular, it examines two best-selling novels by North American author Karen Robards, which have not yet been examined in academia: Dark of the Moon (1988) and Forbidden Love (2013; originally published in 1983). Although this small selection constitutes only a preliminary study of an expanding popular genre, it is my hope that it will serve as a relevant example of how Ireland is exoticised in the transnational cultural industry of romance. Drawing on several studies on popular romance (Radway 1984; Strehle and Carden 2009; and Roach 2016), and on specific sources devoted to the study of historical romance, in particular when set in exotic locations (Hughes 2005; Philips 2011; Teo 2012; 2016), I intend to demonstrate how these novels by Karen Robards follow the clichés and conventions of the typical romances produced in the 1980s. As I show, the popularity that Robards’ novels still enjoy reflects the supremacy of the genre and the wide reception of this kind of fiction in the global market.Keywords: Cultural industry; popular romance; Irish context; market.
Highlights
In her semi-academic, ethnographic study Happily-Ever-After, Catherine Roach (4) identifies romance as “the prime cultural narrative of the modern Western world”
There are literary thousands of authors published by Mills & Boon and Harlequin, and the formula is provided in advance
My study of these two novels is informed by several studies on popular romance (Radway 1984; Strehle and Carden 2009; and Roach 2016), and by specific sources devoted to the study of historical romance, in particular when set in exotic locations (Hughes 2005; Philips 2011; Teo 2012; 2016)
Summary
In her semi-academic, ethnographic study Happily-Ever-After, Catherine Roach (4) identifies romance as “the prime cultural narrative of the modern Western world”. Dark of the Moon and Forbidden Love follow the clichés and conventions of the typical romances marketed at the time My study of these two novels is informed by several studies on popular romance (Radway 1984; Strehle and Carden 2009; and Roach 2016), and by specific sources devoted to the study of historical romance, in particular when set in exotic locations (Hughes 2005; Philips 2011; Teo 2012; 2016). As Teo (87-88) examines in her study of “women’s imperial romantic novels”, former British colonies ( India and Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa) started to be used by women novelists from the 1890s onwards, as “exotic backdrops” for the romantic plot of their stories.9 This motif of the “exotic romance”, as Philips (114-5) notes, became highly popular in the period after the Second World War, as observed in the kind of romances published by Mills & Boon, set in colonial settings as varied as “South Africa, Rhodesia, Malaya, the South Seas, Nigeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, New Zealand, Canada and Australia” (116). As I intend to show, the romantic motif of interethnic love is present in some cases and dominant tropes of colonialism are repeatedly perpetuated, clichéd representations of evil British colonizers and patriotic rebellious Irish characters
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