Literary Love

Literature has always provided readers with an amazing, intimate look at great love stories. We cheer and cry for our couples when they finally make their great confession of love, because we’ve lived their trials along the bumpy road of life with every page turn.

There are different kinds of literary couples, though. You have the nearly perfect, madly in love hero who spends all his time trying to win the heart of our heroine. There is the cocky type of hero who confesses his love in a more colorful gesture, but the heroine, equal to his strength, challenges him at every turn. There are also couples with a mad secret between them, keeping them apart until the end of the story.

Let’s take a look at our first type of couple, the sweet, nearly perfect hero type in Anne of Green Gables. Okay, maybe he wasn’t so perfect in the beginning. The love story between Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe in Anne of Green Gables all started when Gilbert had the nerve to wink at Anne and call her “Carrots.” Talk about a set-up for their entire relationship. This one moment led to many hours of Gilbert gazing from afar. Eventually, he makes a romantic gesture when he steels her dance card, something Anne doesn’t believe Gilbert would ever do since he wasn’t romantic enough.

It only intensifies from there as they grow up. The scene where he rescues her from nearly drowning opened the door for them to move to the next level of their troubled relationship. He makes romantic gestures repeatedly trying to win her heart when he asks for an Encore after she performs for a charity event, and when he gives up a post for school so that she can watch after her home and farm. In the end, Anne finally realizes she loves him. I don’t know about you, but I cried when she sat at his death bed reading the inscription from her first published book. J

To Gilbert, Who inspired me with the idea in the first place.

It’s not always a sweet romantic gesture, sometimes our hero plays a little game with our heroine. You all have to remember one of the most famous scenes in Gone With the Wind. It occurred shortly after Scarlett’s husband died. It’s a marriage proposal, but nothing like Gilbert Blythe’s constant sweet courtship of Anne. Nope, Rhett is a different type of romantic hero. When he proposes, she says no to Rhett at first, but then he kisses her and the answer changes. ;)

Say you’ll marry me when I come back or, before God, I won’t go. I’ll stay around here and play a guitar under your window every night and sing at the top of my voice and compromise you, so you’ll have to marry me to save your reputation.

In Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester doesn’t only propose to Jane once, but twice. The first proposal is a little sketchy, though. It also can’t happen, because he has a wife already locked in the attic. L Let’s take a look at the first proposal.

"Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another."

"I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and cannot return."

"But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to marry."

I was silent: I thought he mocked me.

"Come, Jane — come hither."

"Your bride stands between us."

He rose, and with a stride reached me.

"My bride is here," he said, again drawing me to him, "because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?"

In modern romances, we might not have the same sweeping prose, but we still enjoy the grand gestures of the heroes winning the hearts of our heroine.

What are some of your favorite classic or modern romance books? What romantic gestures still remains in your heart days, months, years after reading a story?

Ciara Knight writes ‘a little bit of edge and a lot of heart’ with her bestselling young adult speculative fiction and romance stories. Her books have secured four stars from RT book reviews, awarded Night Owl Top Picks, five stars from InD’Tale Magazine and Paranormal Romance Guild, topped the Amazon charts, featured on USA Today Blog, and named book of the month by Long and Short Reviews.

www.ciaraknight.com

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