ABSTRACT
There is an undeniable melancholy at the heart of each of the genres with which this book is concerned, and the two texts that form the subject of this chapter acknowledge and examine the source of that melancholy without, finally, succumbing to it. Still, it lingers and defines the tone of each work, redeemed only (in both cases, interestingly enough) by a young, passionate female, whose sense of personal romantic destiny overcomes the weary dejection of the man she loves and the society in which she lives.
