Currents (Dec 2023)
Representations of trauma and solidarity in Regency romance
Abstract
The current status of popular romance fiction in academia is characterized by ambivalence; while dismissed and ridiculed by many, it has also been the object of scholarly study for the past four decades. Much has been written about it, although not always from an unbiased perspective, and some studies have generalized about the genre based on inadequate samples, as Regis (2011) argued. Scholars are showing an ever-growing interest in the genre and its diverse manifestations. This paper focuses on a specific subgenre of popular romantic fiction; I briefly describe the characteristics of historical romance fiction, with the subset known as Regency romance, and the romantic hero as focal points of my review. Within this particular type of narrative, the role and characteristics of the military hero as a war veteran in romantic fiction are touched upon, with a more detailed analysis of the military hero represented in Mary Balogh’s collection of novels, Survivor’s Club (2012-2016). Moreover, I argue that Balogh’s military protagonists are portrayed as masculine, competent, and worthy of respect and love, while adjusting to life with physical disability and/or coping with emotional trauma. The purpose of such an analysis is to prove that popular romantic fiction allows the depiction of meaningful relationships among characters other than the two romantic protagonists. I argue that the courtship plot typical for romance fiction is not prohibitive, and non-romantic relationships may be portrayed with depth and purpose, complementary to the development of the romantic relationship. Furthermore, in Balogh’s novels, solidarity manifested in kin-like relationships is shown to be fundamental in the process of overcoming the trauma of war. This demonstrates that popular romantic fiction is not a limited genre in which all stories are alike: even when a courtship is a central plot, there is yet much to be explored within the pages of a romance novel.
