In his 1979 monograph, Hans Dieter Zimmermann takes up [...] ideas regarding “schema literature” but endeavors to abstain from negative judgments. Zimmermann uses the term “schema literature,” he writes, in order to avoid the “misleading terms” of “trivial literature and entertainment literature.” [...]
The “structure” of the romance novel, in Zimmermann’s account, consists of three “plot units”: 1. Seeing and falling in love; 2. Obstacles and complications; and 3. Overcoming of the obstacles and joining together, or alternatively illness and death of one lover. Zimmermann incorporates gaps, reversals, and repetitions of the schema within his structure. Shortly afterward, however, he makes a qualification: the stages must not be narrated in precisely this order. In each of the sections, obstacles might arise that must be overcome in order to “realize the ideal love story” (Zimmermann, 1979: 72–73, 77–79).
In his subsequent step, Zimmermann turns his attention to romance novels in booklet form. Zimmermann argues that these “dime novels” (Heftromane), which are almost always considered ‘trivial literature’ or ‘mass literature,’ adhere strictly to the aforementioned “sequence of three units.” On this basis, he systematically refers to “dime novels”—works whose structure is ‘reduced,’ ‘minimal,’ and in no way ‘playfully’ varied—as “schematic literature” (Zimmermann, 1979: 76–77). (17-18)
This suggested to me that the book should be included here even if it does not include very many pages on romance (which is what I'm assuming from the page-ranges given by Hecken), for the same reason I included John G. Cawelti's Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (1976): it can nonetheless be important to the history of the study of popular culture, including romance.
I have not read this book but I include it here because of how some aspects of it are summarised in Thomas Hecken's The Popular as Art?: An Investigation into Form, Value, Concepts, and Justifications (2024):
This suggested to me that the book should be included here even if it does not include very many pages on romance (which is what I'm assuming from the page-ranges given by Hecken), for the same reason I included John G. Cawelti's Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (1976): it can nonetheless be important to the history of the study of popular culture, including romance.