What are some other good classical romances on the scale of Romeo and Juliet or Cyrano de Bergerac?

Question

I'd especially like to hear of lesser known ones from around the same age as Shakespeare more or less. Possibly some foreign ones and such. Basically, the kind of stuff found in the 800's section of the library.

In play or poem form also?

Answer 1

You can't beat Shakespeare's enduring tragedies of romantic love, Antony and Cleopatra, and Troilus and Cressida (Chaucer had already written a version of that one too). On a happier level there are As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and, of course, The Taming of the Shrew (and its offspring Kiss Me Kate).

Medieval romances were commonplace, especially in French. The best known in England was Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, an early version of the Arthurian legends, including the romances of Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot, Gareth/Lynette/Lyonesse, and Tristan/Isolde. All of these have since been rewritten in many versions; such as, T. H. White's Once and Future King and the Braodway musical Camelot; Tennyson's Idylls of the King; and Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde. These are the most enduring British romances.

Perhaps he most enduring of the European romances was the one embodied in the Middle High German epic called the Nibelungenlied, or Song of the Nibelungs. It tells the story of the dragon-slayer Siegfried, his courtship of Kriemhild, who had vowed a life of chastity, and his arrangement of the marriage of her brother, King Gunther to the Icelandic queen Brynhild.

Another variation was the Icelandic Volsunga saga, based on the adventures of Sigmund and his twin sister/lover and their son Sigurd. All of these stories have various accounts of the woman warrior, or valkyrie, Brynhildr (Brunhilde).

Of course, the most famous version of these soaring romances is Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, with its four parts recounting the love affairs and destinies of The Wälsungs, offspring of the god Wotan and a woman, namely Siegmund, Sieglinde, his twin sister, Siegfried, son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, and of Brünnhilde the Valkyrie, daughter of Wotan and the goddess Erda.

Early British novels were more realistic than romantic. For example, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones tells the comic love story of Tom and Sophie, but really focuses on Tom's adventures on the road where he falls into other women's arms and beds.

One exception is Sir Walter Scott's Bride of Lammermoor, which tells of a tragic love story involving two hostile families. It became the basis for Donizetti's opera, Lucia di Lammermoor.

Jane Austen's "romances," however, are considerably less "romantic" and more realistic, comic, and almost satiric; for example, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park. Modern movies make them into romances, but Jane focused more on the social milieu.

Curiously, none of the great British Romantic writers wrote traditional romances. Except Keats' narrative poem, "The Eve of St. Agnes," the ballad, "La Belle Dame sans Merci," and the tragic "Lamia," and all of these are more about the man's longing for a beautiful woman than about a courtship.

Many British writers attempted versions of the age-old story of Hero and Leander and alluded to it in their other romances. But no one came up with one. Hero, the priestess of Aphrodite, lived in Seston on the Hellespont. Leander, her lover, from Abydos, had to swim the strait every night to make love to her--until one night, during a storm, he is drowned. Inspired by the story, the impulsive Lord Byron made the same swim and commemorated the event in his poem, "Written After Swimming from Sestos To Abydos."

The poets Byron and Shelley lived quintessential romantic lives, but Shelley's poetry is more idealistic and Platonic and Byron's more satiric or adventurous. The famous, or infamous, Byronic hero is an idealized but flawed adventuer, seductive but distant, and Don Juan is a rake, not a lover.

The ideal Byronic hero, of course, is Heathcliff in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. That novel and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre as well as the lesser known Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade and Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore are the classic romances among nineteenth-century British novels.

Answer 2

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. Or maybe the love between Jane and Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre.

Enjoy~

Edit: I recall a movie called "Tristan and Isold". Maybe it started out as a book?

Answer 3

Try going east

Have you tried reading the love story behind the majestic Taj Mahal. Its how the King build the Taj Mahal as a symbol of devoted love to his wife.

How about the love story between Hang Tuah and Princess of Ledand Moutain. (Puteri Gunung Ledang)

Answer 4

Romeo & Juliet, definitely .... Cyrano's nose kinda freaked me out.

Answer 5

Try "Tristan and Isolde." There is an opera by Wagner on the subject, as well as the story itself. "Ivanhoe" would be a good one as well.