Blurring boundaries : pleasures of popular romance

Abstract

Immersed in the fantasy worlds of fairy tales and popular romance novels, this project explores the experience of reading for pleasure. Using the fairy tale, "Beauty and the Beast" as well as its retelling in popular romance format in Linda Jones' Debuty and the Beast, my work explores the tension and enjoyment of being a reader of romance while simultaneously internalizing the literary hierarchy that can relegate pleasure to the bottom of the value system. Ultimately, this thesis seeks out the places and times between the concrete, the literary seams amidst the defined limitations of what we think we know, and reexamines the value of pleasure and play for readers of the romance genre.