{"title":"Post-Trump masculinity in popular romance novels","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s11059-024-00731-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>As an almost exclusively female-dominated medium, the popular romance novel has, throughout its history, allowed women writers to “amplify their political voice” (Teo, 2016, p. 102), especially when they could not actively participate in politics. Commonly, writers fashion storylines that reflect and process concerns from the real world in a fictional context. Using the Regency Romance as an example and based on Jayashree Kamblé’s theory that romance novels have a shared DNA that evolves in response to social and cultural influences, this paper first defines the figure of the romance hero in the pre-Trump era to segue into analysing selected novels published by Tessa Dare in 2011 (<em>A night to surrender</em>) and Sarah MacLean in 2012 (<em>A rogue by any other name</em>). This figure is then compared and contrasted with the incarnations of the hero in these authors’ publications from 2017 (<em>The day of the duchess</em> by MacLean) and 2019 (<em>The wallflower wager</em> by Dare) to map how his phenotype has evolved to reflect a shift in cultural perceptions regarding sex and sexual power dynamics. As I intend to show, in the wake of the 2016 US presidential election and the “#MeToo” movement, the new hero’s phenotype differs specifically in the expression of gendered power and sexuality. He is less forceful than his predecessors and places heavy emphasis on the heroine’s enthusiastic consent and pleasure.</p>","PeriodicalId":54002,"journal":{"name":"NEOHELICON","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"NEOHELICON","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-024-00731-2","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
As an almost exclusively female-dominated medium, the popular romance novel has, throughout its history, allowed women writers to “amplify their political voice” (Teo, 2016, p. 102), especially when they could not actively participate in politics. Commonly, writers fashion storylines that reflect and process concerns from the real world in a fictional context. Using the Regency Romance as an example and based on Jayashree Kamblé’s theory that romance novels have a shared DNA that evolves in response to social and cultural influences, this paper first defines the figure of the romance hero in the pre-Trump era to segue into analysing selected novels published by Tessa Dare in 2011 (A night to surrender) and Sarah MacLean in 2012 (A rogue by any other name). This figure is then compared and contrasted with the incarnations of the hero in these authors’ publications from 2017 (The day of the duchess by MacLean) and 2019 (The wallflower wager by Dare) to map how his phenotype has evolved to reflect a shift in cultural perceptions regarding sex and sexual power dynamics. As I intend to show, in the wake of the 2016 US presidential election and the “#MeToo” movement, the new hero’s phenotype differs specifically in the expression of gendered power and sexuality. He is less forceful than his predecessors and places heavy emphasis on the heroine’s enthusiastic consent and pleasure.
摘要 作为一种几乎完全由女性主导的媒介，通俗爱情小说在其历史上一直允许女性作家 "放大她们的政治声音"（Teo，2016 年，第 102 页），尤其是在她们无法积极参与政治的时候。通常情况下，作家们通过虚构的故事情节来反映和处理现实世界中的问题。本文以摄政时期的浪漫小说为例，根据杰亚希-坎布雷（Jayashree Kamblé）的理论，即浪漫小说有一个共同的基因，会随着社会和文化的影响而演变，首先定义了前特朗普时代的浪漫英雄形象，然后分析了泰莎-达雷（Tessa Dare）在2011年出版的小说《投降之夜》（A night to surrender）和莎拉-麦克莱恩（Sarah MacLean）在2012年出版的小说《一个流氓的名字》（A rogue by any other name）。然后将这一人物形象与这两位作家在 2017 年（麦克莱恩的《公爵夫人之日》）和 2019 年（达雷的《壁花赌注》）出版的作品中的英雄化身进行比较和对比，以描绘他的表型是如何演变的，从而反映出关于性和性权力动态的文化观念的转变。正如我打算展示的那样，在 2016 年美国总统大选和 "#MeToo "运动之后，新英雄的表型在表达性别权力和性方面有了具体的不同。他没有前辈们那么强势，非常强调女主人公的热情同意和愉悦。
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Neohelicon welcomes studies on all aspects of comparative and world literature, critical theory and practice. In the discussion of literary historical topics (including literary movements, epochs, or regions), analytical contributions based on a solidly-anchored methodology are preferred.
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