[Ads-l] Word: Romantasy - literary genre blending romance and fantasy (with eroticism)

Thu Jan 9 20:26:15 UTC 2025

Here are two citations from Newspapers.com.
The first citation in 1928 is an advertisement which uses
"romantasies" when discussing romanticized and stylized depictions of
love on luncheon ware.

Date: May 16, 1928
Newspaper: The Pittsburgh Press
Newspaper Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Article: (Advertisement for Luncheon Ware)
Quote Page 24, Column 4
Database: Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-pittsburgh-press-romantasies/162647858/

[Begin excerpt]
Now--PINK Willow English Luncheon Ware
Service for 6 5.95 Regularly 6.95

Every hostess knows Blue Willow, the lovers fleeing across the bridge,
the turtle doves and all the other romantasies ... and now we've had
this illustrous pattern done in PINK, and it's delightful ... and
you'll want to see it ... and own it!
[End excerpt]

The second citation in 1940 is an advertisement which uses "romantasy"
to describe a novel. I am not sure whether this novel fits into the
fantasy genre in the modern sense.

Date: August 25, 1940
Newspaper: The Observer
Newspaper Location: London, England
Article: (Advertisement for the book "When the cat's away" by Gerald Bullett)
Quote Page 2, Column 6
Database: Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-observer-romantasy/162649070/

[Begin excerpt]
The holiday novel of the year
Bullett versus bombs!

Are we light-hearted? Yes if we counter warning - weariness by reading
Gerald Bullett's romantasy:

When the cat's away
GERALD BULLETT

'It is the lightest of frolics: a delightfully absurd plot, a peer,
and a girl who runs away from home, a few eccentrics, and a cat--and
frivolous and charmingly witty it all is.'--RALPH STRAUS.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Thu, Jan 9, 2025 at 2:35 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Excellent citation, Jeff. The phrase "Jacqueline Susann romantasy"
> suggests to me that the sense of "romantasy" in this citation differs
> from the modern genre sense. The word "romantasy" in the phrase
> "Jacqueline Susann romantasy" is based on a blend of romance and
> fantasy, but the sense of fantasy is different.
>
> The fantasy worlds of Jacqueline Susann were filled with glamour,
> wealth, fame, power, handsome men, beautiful women, and sex. Her
> fiction is not described as supernatural, fantastical, or
> other-worldly. I do not think Susann wrote about "vampires,
> manticores, werewolves, and other types of monsters and
> shape-shifters".
>
> Jeff mentioned "Yargo". Wikipedia suggests that the novel had two
> different titles.  "During the mid-1950s, Susann wrote a
> science-fiction novel called The Stars Scream[28] (published
> posthumously as Yargo)."
>
> LH: That passage in the New Yorker article was odd. How does the plot
> of a novel continue after the protagonist has turned into a piece of
> cheese?
>
> Garson
>
> On Thu, Jan 9, 2025 at 12:41 PM Jeff Prucher
> <000000b93183dc86-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> >  I first encountered the term on the jacket copy of "I Married an Earthling" by Alvin Orloff. It seemed very natural, but I never saw it again until the recent craze.
> > Part Jacqueline Susann romantasy, part cheesy <i>Lost In Space</i> episode, this gay comedy will delight any fan of pop culture literature.
> > I Married an Earthling, by Alvin OrloffManic D Press, 2000back coverhttps://archive.org/details/imarriedearthlin0000orlo/page/258/mode/2up
> >
> > I'm not sure what to make of the phrase "Jacqueline Susann romantasy", though. She did write one SF romance ("Yargo") but I don't think it's especially well-known, and is probably not what most people will think of when you say "Jacqueline Susann".
> >     On Thursday, January 9, 2025 at 09:00:26 AM PST, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> >
> >  > On Jan 9, 2025, at 7:55 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> > >
> > > The romantasy genre is achieving new heights of popularity. This
> > > portmanteau word appeared in the following recent article:
> > >
> > > Website The New Yorker newyorker.com
> > > Article: Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?
> > > Author: Katy Waldman
> > > Date: January 6, 2025
> > > https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/01/13/did-a-best-selling-romantasy-novelist-steal-another-writers-story
> > >
> > > [Begin excerpt]
> > > In 2020, Maas's publishers changed up their marketing strategy,
> > > causing the series to be rehomed in the adult section. "It birthed
> > > this genre of romantasy," Cassandra Clare, the author of the
> > > best-selling fantasy series "The Mortal Instruments," told me, "which
> > > to me is books that contain a lot of the tropes that make Y.A. popular
> > > but also have explicit sex in them."
> > > [End excerpt]
> > >
> >
> > Hah.  A new one on me. I took a look at the Waldman piece in the link and was especially intrigued with this bit:
> >
> > Romantasy sells a lightly transgressive form of wish fulfillment that holds out the enthralling promise of sex with vampires, manticores, werewolves, and other types of monsters and shape-shifters. (There’s even a “cheese-shifter” paranormal romance, by the author Ellen Mint, in which characters can turn into different types of cheese.)
> >
> > Romano-tasy, anyone? Enthralling indeed!
> >
> > LH
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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