Abstract
The need for, yet denial of, repetition constitutes a paradox that has long confounded the theorisation of romantic love. Inasmuch as many of our most enduring defi nitions of love regard its non-repeatability as key (“love is forever,” “you and no other,” etc.), and others (particularly those stemming from psychoanalysis) regard the human subject’s compulsion to repetition as equally non-negotiable, philosophical tension and dispute are guaranteed; and inasmuch as the romance genre depends upon an inexorable process of repeating and refi guring narrative and other conventions, so must the tension also live on in the love story itself. Repetition, in other words, is the seemingly inexhaustible, yet infi nitely exhausting, life-blood of romance, regardless of whether the story in question is bound for tragedy (where death is invoked to vouchsafe love’s non-repeatability) or a “happy ending” (where past relationships, as well as new ones glimmering darkly on the horizon, are temporarily dazzled and silenced by an all consuming present).
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