Have you ever seen an old movie called Three Coins in the Fountain? It is about three young American women (search) for permanent romance in Rome and they all find it. Far-fetched Hollywood? Well, from the world history point of view, romance did, in fact, set down its roots in Rome.
The word romance evolved in Latin from Roma to Romanicus of the Roman language, to the Old French romanz escrive, means "to write in a Romance language," and on to the English romance.
The Romance languages (compose) of seven groups of languages that all have Latin their basis. These languages include French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. The common people in ancient Rome spoke is referred to as Vulgar Latin, an informal speech, as opposed to the classical Latin of the more educated. Most language experts agree that Vulgar Latin is the chief source of the Romance languages.
Medieval Romances were tales (write) primary in French verse about brave heroes. The notion of having a romance with another person is thought (develop) sometime during the Middle Ages. In the late 18th century and on through the 19th, a romance was not a love story a work of prose fiction that contained far-fetched, mysterious events. Romances of this period (include) English Gothic novels like The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole.
What exactly is a twentieth-century romance? Does it have any relationship with the lively, popular novels written today, with their fantastic plots of love affairs? Or did the playwright Oscar Wilde have it right in The Picture of Dorian Gray: "When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving , and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance."
