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name romantic. This desire for romantic names is further satisfied in her composition
of a romance, because the names of the hero and heroines are Bertram De Vere,
Cordelia Montmorency, and Geraldine Seymour. One meaning of the word romantic
in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (MWCD, 11th ed) is “marked by the
imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious,
or idealized”, which I think is what Montgomery means when she depicts Anne as a
person with a predilection for these remote and exotic names.
According to MWCD, romantic comes from the French word “romantique”,
developing from “romant” (meaning “romance”), the word itself from Old French
“romanz”, while romance is from Middle English “romauns”, developing from
Ancient French “romanz”. Thus romantic and romance have a close relation in
etymology. As a literary genre, medieval romance, or chivalric romance, is a
“narrative genre which developed in twelfth-century France”, representing “a courtly
and chivalric age, often one of highly developed manners and civility”, and “it
delights in wonders and marvels” (A Glossary 24). Anne’s impressive romantic
activities are the most charming parts in the novel and have effectively proved her
romantic trait. Among these episodes most are related to connotations or/and
denotations of romance.
One of Anne’s wishes in life is “to be a trained nurse and go with the Red
Crosses to the field of battle as a messenger of mercy” (Montgomery 149), but it is
still secondary to the aim of being a foreign missionary. Both the two dreams involve
a wandering life, the adventurous feature of romance. In the farewell scene with
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Diana, Anne asks for one lock of Diana’s hair to treasure and she tells Marilla that she
is going to sew it up in a little bag and wear it around her neck. She even indulges
herself in an imagination that the lock of hair should be buried with her for she
believes she will not live long. The action of preserving a partner’s hair and the
imagined plot which adds a tragic air to the former are obviously an imitation from
romances, half funny and half pompous. However the fantasy of “the Haunted Wood”
is quite another kind to be romantic, because Anne imagines a white lady (who
“wrings her hands and utters wailing cries”, and whose appearance is an omen of a
death in some family), a ghost of a little murdered child (who “creeps up behind you
and lays its cold fingers on your hand”), and a headless man (who “stalks up and
down the path and skeletons glower at you between the boughs”) (Montgomery
128-129) into this quite ordinary wood. This fancy is even more Gothic than romantic.
We notice that Montgomery adds the title “A Good Imagination Gone Wrong” to this
chapter which shows some criticism on Anne. In fact Marilla cures her of being too
romantic by forcing her to go through the wood in the evening when the ghosts are
supposed to appear.
However, we do admire her talent in the composition of a romance titled “The
Jealous Rival; or, in Death Not Divided”. She consults her friend Ruby Gillis about
the proprieties of a proposal for her hero and heroine, and is dissatisfied with Ruby’s
description of a very practical and common one. So she let her hero propose to his
lover in the manner of a chivalrous knight. And the heroine accepts him “in a speech a
page long” (Montgomery 162). Anne insists that the ending of the story should be
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tragic—the lovers are both drowned and the antagonist, the rival turns mad and is shut
up in a convent, because she believes that a tragic ending is more romantic than a
happy one, which shows her aesthetic taste.
Anne’s last memorable romantic activity is the play-acting, in which she acts
the main character Elaine. With the fanciful costumes and props, Anne is to be a dead
lily maid drifting down in a flat to the lower headland, where she is to be received by
“Lancelot”, “Guinevere”, and the “King”. But her enjoyment of such a romantic
situation ends almost in a very tragic way, because the crack in the bottom makes the
flat begin to sink while floating. Fortunately she is rescued by Gilbert Blythe in time,
who is then her unforgivable enemy. Early in the novel Anne exclaims that “[i]t would
have been such a romantic experience to have been nearly drowned” (Montgomery
81); when this wish is dutifully satisfied she feels nothing romantic at all. This
incident further cures her romantic tendency. Actually, as Anne grows up, she
becomes a standard good girl, less interesting and more common. This is perhaps
what we call the cost of being mature.
To sum up, we find that Montgomery’s concept of romantic is quite rich. It
involves the most important characteristics of the Romantic Period in English
literature—love of nature, poetic expressions, and an emphasis on imagination.
Though in the above exposition of the term romantic I do not expand much on
imagination, we all know that Anne’s creations and imitations of poetic expressions,
her preference for legendary and exotic names, and her romantic actions are all based
on her imagination. But the meanings of Montgomery’s romantic have gone beyond
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those that mark the features of the Romantic Period; her romantic on many occasions
defines itself in the range of romance, or even Gothic novels. We can not fail to detect
some Gothic elements in Anne’s composition of that romance and the fancied stories
of “the Haunted Wood”. However, not only romantic poetry is related to medieval
romance, as is proved by works of Coleridge and Keats, but also Gothic novels
(Generally speaking, they are in the scope of romantic novels), with magic and
supernatural phenomenon, are “an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance: the
ancient and the modern” (Lewis xii), the former definitely referring to medieval
romance. Therefore, it is proper to say that Montgomery has well probed into the
concept of romantic in its abundant connotations and denotations formed in a long
literary tradition.
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Works Cited
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York: Holt, 1988.
Abrams, M. H., and Jack Stillinger. “The Romantic Period.” The Norton Anthology of
English Literature. 6th ed. Ed. M. H Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996.
Coleridge, Samuel T. “Biographia Literaria.” The Norton Anthology of English
Literature. 6th ed. Ed. M. H Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996.
Lewis, W. S. Introduction. The Castle of Otranto. By W. S. Lewis. London: Oxford
UP, 1964. xii.
Montgomery, L. M. Anne of Green Gables. 1985. New Jersey: Gramercy-Random,
1986.