It is an optimistic interpretation of life, looking for what is
good and permanent beneath all the surface confusion. Romance may be called
Idealism in the realm of sentiment. It aims largely to interest and
delight, to throw over life a pleasing glamor; it generally deals with love
or heroic adventure; and it generally locates its scenes and characters in
distant times and places, where it can work unhampered by our consciousness
of the humdrum actualities of our daily experience. It may always be asked
whether a writer of Romance makes his world seem convincingly real as we
read or whether he frankly abandons all plausibility. The presence or
absence of a supernatural element generally makes an important difference.
Entitled to special mention, also, is spiritual Romance, where attention is
centered not on external events, which may here be treated in somewhat
shadowy fashion, but on the deeper questions of life. Spiritual Romance,
therefore, is essentially idealistic.
DRAMATIC POWER. Dramatic power, in general, means the presentation of life
with the vivid active reality of life and character which especially
distinguishes the acted drama. It is, of course, one of the main things to
be desired in most narrative; though sometimes the effect sought may be
something different, as, for instance, in romance and poetry, an atmosphere
of dreamy beauty. In a drama, and to some extent in other forms of
narrative, dramatic power culminates in the ability to bring out the great
crises with supreme effectiveness.
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