The Romance Novel

The Romantic Novel genre originated during the second century. Authors began combining love stories with action/adventure stories and ended up with this incredibly popular new genre. The stories always involve a strong love interest between a couple, but the couple cannot be together due to spectacular misfortunes that require long and difficult trips to bring them together. It is in these misfortunes that the adventure works its way into what would otherwise be a simple love story.

Over twenty texts have been identified that fit this genre, but only five remain complete today. Most works are known from fragments and quotations in other texts. The novels are usually named after the couple that the book is written about. Many of the novels are several volumes in size and some of the remaining manuscripts are rather erratic in their plot lines suggesting that there might have been changes or errors made later.

Longus: Daphnis and Chloe

Xenophon: An Ephesian Tale

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