Nicolas Baumard

Ancient World Values Survey: Romantic love

DISCLAIMER

The Ancient Literary Fictions Values Survey is designed to characterize the evolution of the values, preferences and beliefs expressed in literary fictions across history using academic publication in literary history and cultural history. In this document, I focus on love. I did my best to be as comprehensive as possible in my study (see methods below). I began with published works in literary history and cultural history. I wrote a first draft of the survey, and then contacted as many scholars as possible for each field and time period. Using their feedback and advice, I then conducted a second phase of research. That said, it is inevitable that there are gaps in this survey. If you detect any such gaps, please do not hesitate to contact me (nbaumard@gmail.com).

CREATION OF THE SURVEY INCLUSION CRITERIA

All literary narrative fictions were included, whatever their genre: epics, romances, novels, comedies, farces, ballads, operas, ballets, etc. This means that: 1) non-literary works are excluded. A story that is known to us only from reports of mythographers or from iconography with no detailed literary parallels is excluded (see Fantuzzi, 2012, for a similar choice). This is due to the need to have the most homogeneous corpus.

2) non-narrative works, and in particular non-narrative poetic works, are excluded 3) non-fictional literary works are excluded: historiography, biographies, diaries, letters, travelogues, philosophical texts and religious books whose main purpose is doctrinal or historical.

The distinction between fictional and non-fictional is sometimes difficult to operate. Here is what Tim Whitmarsh writes about ancient Greek narratives:

The definition of 'fictional' is hard to draw with precision, particularly when it comes to the more imaginative end of the historiographical spectrum. Asking how 'historical' Herodotus is, for example, and how 'fictional', only betrays the limitations of those analytical categories. (Whitmarsh, 2018, 15) This issue is all the more important that the first Greek love stories arise in historical narrative such as Xenophon's The Education of Cyrus and Ctesias' Persica. The same problem arises for the medieval period. For instance, Monmouth's famous Historia Regum Britanniae is presented as work of history. Yet, even during the medieval period, some already considered it as a work of fiction [START_REF] Zink | Le moyen age: littérature franca̧ise[END_REF]. To limit bias in the analysis, I adopted a conservative approach and excluded all works whose explicit intentions were non-fictional.

DELIMITATION OF THE SAMPLE

The sample was decided a priori based on the amount of data in literary history and economic history. For literary history, I used Wikipedia's entries, a good proxy of both the production of a literary tradition and the academic production of studies on this tradition. To be included in the study, a literary tradition had to have more than 10 narrative works with a proper page in Wikipedia. I used cultural traditions to select the most relevant geographical areas for which economic data are available (e.g. England for English literature, Eastern Mediterranean for Ancient Greek literature).

I ended up with 19 areas:

-2000 BCE -500 BCE: Egypt (from Ancient Egyptian) and Mesopotamia (from Sumerian and Akkadian).

The starting date of the project is based on the earliest available material, that is Egyptian and Sumerian narratives. The stopping date was set a priori at 1800. After 1800, the amount of literary production would require a different method. Also, after 1800, highly romantic love stories become increasingly frequent, making a comparative study more difficult. RESEARCH STRATEGY I combined three strategies to find works where love is central. First, I searched Google Scholar for 'romantic love', 'love story', 'love' in association with terms related to the particular literary traditions involved in the study (e.g. 'Latin literature', 'Roman literature' 'literature in Rome'). This allows for finding works devoted to the study of love in a specific tradition (such as Konstan's Sexual symmetry on ancient Greek novels). Second, I searched Google Scholar and Amazon for Companions, Handbooks and General History books devoted to the specific literary traditions involved in the study (e.g. Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy). Within each book, I then systematically searched for 'romantic love', 'love story' and 'love'. Finally, I contacted over 70 academics in cultural history and history of literature and we organized two workshops at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris with academics in cultural history and history of literature.

In each case, when I found a story or a literary tradition that could be considered as high in romantic love, I looked up to the more specialized scholarship devoted to this particular story. Such a method certainly has drawbacks. In particular, it is possible that some romantic stories have been overlooked. However, the probability of false negatives (i.e. concluding that love stories are absent while they are present in reality) is very limited because it usually occurs during poorer periods for which there is a limited number of literary works (e.g. Early Medieval Ireland, Archaic Greece, Central Medieval Russia). For these reasons, the extant works are very limited and well-studied. It is therefore unlikely that a romantic story will remain undetected.

TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL LEVEL OF ANALYSIS

The temporal and spatial level of analysis were decided based on the availability of economic data. Before the 19 th c., it is impossible to go below the national level for most countries. The only exception is the Roman Empire where some estimates allow for distinguishing between the Western part and the Eastern part of the Empire, which corresponds to the Latin and Greek areas.

To limit bias in data analysis, I used standard historical periods whenever possible, deferring to Wikipedia to label each period. In particular, we use the same temporal division for all European countries: Early Medieval period (500 -1000), Central Medieval period (1000 -1300), Late Medieval period (1300 -1500) and Early Modern period (1500 -1800). These temporal division do not always match the evolution of economic development. However, they allow for limiting the degrees of freedom in the analysis. In the end, the combination of the 19 geographical areas and their standard historical periods leads to 77 cases of observation.

PRESENTATION OF THE SURVEY

The survey is organized by geographic areas (e.g. Greece, England, etc.), and within one geographical area by historical periods, with the earlier periods first.

Comparison within the same area (e.g. Archaic Greece and Hellenistic Greece) are thus naturally presented in the relevant section (e.g. Greece). For comparisons across areas (Archaic Greece versus Medieval England, the comparison is presented in the section of the area that flourished later (Medieval England) because the later area (Medieval England) usually re-used the material of earlier culture (Archaic Greece).

In some cases, cultural transmission went both ways: in the central medieval period, the Welsh literature inspired the Western European literature (e.g. the Arthurian legend), but later on it was in return inspired by Western European productions (e.g. Chrétien de Troye's romances were translated in Welsh). In this case, the first comparison is presented in the England section, and the second in the Welsh section. And because England was overall more influential culturally than Wales, we present first the England section.

The survey thus starts with the most ancient traditions (e.g. Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia) and ends with the most recent (e.g. (Iceland and Norway, Russia).

In each case, the survey proceeds as follow:

• Literature: Timeline and general remarks • Economic Development across periods (when possible Living Standards and Human Development indicators were added) • Evolution of love in ancient fictions across periods -Categorical method -Comparative method within the same literary tradition -Comparative method within the same genre -Comparative method between different storylines A NOTE ON OPEN SCIENCE AND WIKIPEDIA

The choice to use Wikipedia as a starting point for the study and as a way to define the limits of the project is based on open science considerations. For obvious reasons of space and readability, I could not include all the summaries of the narratives studied in this survey. In most cases, I restricted the discussion to a few situations that can be used to assess the level of love of the story. Before the emergence of Wikipedia and the digital humanities, checking the accuracy of such summary reviews would have been very difficult. With Wikipedia, checking the narrative content of a story is a matter of a few seconds. The reader does not have to take my word for it, and can easily go read the summary, as well as the academic references included in the page.

Open science also led us to restrict the study to narratives and exclude non-narrative literature.

Reading a Wikipedia entry allows everyone, whether or not they are an expert, to roughly assess the amount of love in a plot. This is not the case for non-narrative literature, which is more ambiguous and requires much greater familiarity with its language and literary tradition O'Connor, R. Classical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Narrative. vol. 34 (Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2014). Gies, D. T. The Cambridge history of Spanish literature. (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

GENERAL METHODOLOGICAL HYPOTHESES

Note: This section is an extended version of the discussion presented at the end of The Cultural Evolution of Love in Literary History, and uses elements that are presented in more detail in the rest of the paper.

INFERRING LOVE FROM NARRATIVE FICTIONS

The present study assumes that the feelings depicted in narrative fictions correspond to the modern scientific characterization of romantic love, and thus can function as an indicator of the cultural evolution of investment in pair bonding. In the brain and behavioral sciences, romantic love is conceived as a commitment device composed of passion, intimacy, and caregiving that ultimately evolved to motivate pair bonding in humans and thereby help provide the massive investment required to rear human children [START_REF] Buss | The evolution of love[END_REF][START_REF] Fletcher | Pair-bonding, romantic love, and evolution : The curious case of homo sapiens[END_REF]. It is universal, it suppresses mate-search mechanisms, and it has specific behavioral, hormonal, and neuropsychological signatures [START_REF] Fletcher | Pair-bonding, romantic love, and evolution : The curious case of homo sapiens[END_REF].

From a behavioral point of view, a narrative will thus be more "romantic" if it insists on mutual attraction, emotional attachment (e.g., love at first sight, intrusive thinking about the love object), long-term commitment and the priority of love (e.g., love suicide, lovesickness, broken heartedness) (Gottschall, 2008a;[START_REF] Harris | Rethinking Polynesian heterosexual relationships : A case study on Mangaia, Cook Islands. Romantic passion: A universal experience[END_REF][START_REF] Karandashev | Romantic love in cultural contexts[END_REF].

Is it possible to find this characterization of romantic love in ancient literature? Let us consider the two examples of ancient Greek novels and Chinese caizi-jiaren stories.

ANCIENT GREEK NOVELS

The "romantic complex" closely corresponds to what Konstan (2014) has called "sexually symmetric" stories in Greek and Latin. In contrast to a range of stories in ancient literature focused on male characters, their desires and their actions, these highly romantic love stories are characterized by a certain degree of symmetry between the two main characters (Point 1). These stories also insist on the depiction of feelings (love at first sight, emotional attachment) (Point 2). They put more emphasis on feelings of commitment than on the sensual and sexual pleasures of love (Point 3). Finally, both characters are active in the pursuit of love and display very high levels of commitment, committing suicide when their love becomes impossible or when their partner dies (Point 4). In a nutshell, they exemplify all the characteristics of what psychologists call "romantic love" [START_REF] Fletcher | Pair-bonding, romantic love, and evolution : The curious case of homo sapiens[END_REF].

Since these novels are not well known, and are no longer read (in contrast to early modern plots such as Romeo and Juliet, La Nouvelle Héloïse, and Werther), it might be useful to quote one of them verbatim at some length. Here are some extracts from Heliodorus of Emesa's AEthiopica (2 nd -3 rd c.), illustrating the different points in the romantic complex:

(1) Reciprocity and (2) attraction:

"For, as soon as they beheld each other, they loved; it seemed as if their souls had recognised that they were akin, as if, conscious that they were related by nobility, they hastened with a bound each towards its affinity. At first they remained dumbfounded and motionless; she, still holding out the torch, and he, extending his hand to take it. For a long time they continued thus, their eyes fixed upon each other, as if, instead of having now met for the first time, they had met before, and were trying to remember where. Then they smiled, gently and almost imperceptibly, which was only betrayed by the movement of their eyes; soon, as if ashamed, they both blushed; and, a moment later, when passion had reached their hearts, they grew pale. In a word, a thousand changes overspread their faces in a moment, a thousand changes of colour and features betrayed the agitation of their soul." (II,5) He swore that he had never known a woman, that he had always spurned them and despised the idea of love and marriage, until Chariclea's beauty had proved to him that he was naturally weak, but that he had never until then beheld a woman worthy of his love. (II, 17)

(3) Emotional bonding (associated with long-term commitment and dissociated from sexual attraction and sexual promiscuity):

I have kept myself pure from all illegitimate intercourse with you; I have frequently repelled your advances, waiting for the opportunity of legitimately consecrating that union to which we have been pledged from the commencement, and which has been confirmed by most solemn oaths. (I, 1)

(4) The priority of love over other goals:

It's Theagen who will marry me or the fatal day will come for me. (IV,11) Evidently, these paragraphs could hardly be more romantic. They correspond point by point to the behavioral characterization of love, and can be tracked in isolation from each other.

CHINESE CAIZI-JIAREN STORIES

The same remark holds for Chinese romantic stories, referred to as "caizi-jiaren" (scholarbeauty). Consider, for instance, this modern characterization of caizi-jiaren stories (adapted from Song, 2004):

1) It is a love story between a handsome young scholar and a beautiful girl, both of whom display an exceptional gift for poetry and prose.

2) Both the hero and the heroine come from distinguished families.

3) They meet under an unexpected circumstance and fall in love at first sight. 4) Some hindrances occur in the way of their marriage; it is usually the girl's mother or father who is opposed to the match because of the scholar's lack of an official rank.

5) The love stories invariably end with the happy reunion of the couple, which in most cases is made possible by the caizi's success in the imperial examination.

The Story of the Western Wing (13 th c.) matches this pattern perfectly. Again, because medieval Chinese stories are not well known to modern readers, it is worth presenting this story in more details.

The play has twenty-one acts in five parts. It tells the story of a secret love affair between Zhang Sheng, a young scholar, and Cui Yingying, the daughter of a chief minister of the Tang court. The two first meet in a Buddhist monastery. Yingying and her mother have stopped there to rest while escorting the coffin of Yingying's father to their native town. Zhang Sheng falls in love with her immediately, but is prevented from expressing his feelings while Yingying is under her mother's watchful eye. The most he can do is express his love in a poem read aloud behind the wall of the courtyard in which Yingying is lodging.

However, word of Yingying's beauty soon reaches Sun the Flying Tiger, a local bandit. He dispatches ruffians to surround the monastery, in the hopes of taking her as his consort. Yingying's mother agrees that whoever drives the bandits away can have Yingying's hand in marriage, so Zhang Sheng contacts his childhood friend General Du, who is stationed not far away. The general subdues the bandits, and it seems that Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying are set to be married. However, Yingying's mother begins to regret her rash promise to Zhang Sheng, and takes back her word, with the excuse that Yingying is already betrothed to the son of another high official of the court. The two young lovers are greatly disappointed, and begin to pine away with their unfulfilled love. Fortunately, Yingying's maid, Hongniang, takes pity on them, and ingeniously arranges to bring them together in a secret union. When Yingying's mother discovers what her daughter has done, she reluctantly consents to a formal marriage on one condition: Zhang must travel to the capital and pass the civil service examination. To the joy of the young lovers, Zhang Sheng proves to be a brilliant scholar, and is appointed to high office. The story thus ends on a happy note, as the two are finally married. (Romance of the Western Chamber -Wikipedia, s. d.)

By contrast, the first version of the same story, The Biography of Yingying, written in the 9 th century, departs markedly from the caizi-jiaren pattern. In this story, the beauty Yingying does not fall in love at first sight, but instead rebuffs the scholar at first. She eventually sleeps with the scholar without clearly expressing her feelings. Finally, there is no happy ending. The scholar passes the exam successfully but never comes back to marry her. By comparing The Story of the Western Wing and The Biography of Yingying, and their respective distances from an ideal romantic plot, we can track the relative importance of romantic love for the public of these two stories (for a more comprehensive study of the story of Yingying, see below 'Literary Transmission Chains').

TESTING THE EXTERNAL VALIDITY OF LITERARY WORKS

The present work assumes that literary works reflect the preferences of the people who read them. Is this a valid assumption? It is, at least, standard in the history of mentalities.

Here is what the historian Georges Duby wrote on medieval love stories:

The poets who wrote on the Tristan theme sought to please: their patron, first, and their public, second. They thus all made great efforts to present, through the character of Iseult, an image of womanhood that fit with the fantasies of the courtiers. There is no doubt that they were able to strike a chord: if they had not, what would be left of their work? There was every chance that those verses that, each time he went to present the work, the interpreter drew from his memory-those words flying from mouth to mouth-would be lost. The fact that we are still able to read them now means that they were indeed found pleasing, and that the story they tell enthralled the hearers. That is why the telling of this adventure allows us to reconstruct, with less uncertainty than by other means, an image that is very difficult to perceive: that of womanhood and love toward 1170-1180, at the forefront of social sophistication, in the Anglo-Norman courts. (Duby, 2013, p. 135) Duby's formulation ("those words flying from mouth to mouth") is very close to modern understandings of cultural transmission, in which cultural items are transmitted only if they fit with people's psychology [START_REF] Boyer | Minds Make Societies : How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create[END_REF]Dan Sperber, 1996). And indeed, recent work has shown that people's preferences in various areas of social cognition are reflected in cultural artefacts. [START_REF] Costa | Aesthetic phenomena as supernormal stimuli : The case of eye, lip, and lower-face size and roundness in artistic portraits[END_REF] demonstrated that a universal preference for friendlylooking faces leads painters to exaggerate "neotenic" features in their portraits (big eyes or round faces). [START_REF] Morin | How portraits turned their eyes upon us : Visual preferences and demographic change in cultural evolution[END_REF] showed that Renaissance portraits depicting their subject with a direct gaze are more popular in art books than portraits with an averted gaze, due to the attention-grabbing nature of the direct gaze. In the same way, fictions, such as romance novels [START_REF] Cox | The Texas billionaire's pregnant bride : An evolutionary interpretation of romance fiction titles[END_REF][START_REF] Kruger | Proper and dark heroes as dads and cads[END_REF][START_REF] Salmon | The pop culture of sex : An evolutionary window on the worlds of pornography and romance[END_REF], TV shows [START_REF] Fisher | Why who shot JR Matters : Dallas as the pinnacle of human evolutionary television[END_REF], epic poems [START_REF] Gottschall | The rape of Troy : Evolution, violence, and the world of Homer[END_REF], and tragedies [START_REF] Nettle | The wheel of fire and the mating game : Explaining the origins of tragedy and comedy[END_REF] are all consistently aligned with humans' universal interest in information related to mating, commitment, and status competition (for reviews and discussions, see [START_REF] Gottschall | The literary animal : Evolution and the nature of narrative[END_REF][START_REF] Pinker | Toward a consilient study of literature[END_REF]. Importantly, art works and fictions can be used to recover people's preferences. Safra et al. [START_REF] Safra | Tracking historical changes in trustworthiness using machine learning analyses of facial cues in paintings[END_REF] showed that in high-trust countries, people's selfies tend display higher levels of trustworthiness, and that such an association can be used to uncover past social preferences. In the same way, using French and English theater plays, [START_REF] Martins | The rise of prosociality in fiction preceded democratic revolutions in Early Modern Europe[END_REF] show that prior to both the English Civil War and French Revolution, there was a sharp rise in the frequency of words associated with prosociality, trustworthiness, and sympathy vs. words related to authoritarianism, strength and anger.

The story of Tristan and Iseult was transmitted and enjoyed enormous success in the 12 th and 13 th centuries because it fit with people's taste for romantic stories. If it had not matched people's preferences, it would have disappeared quickly (which it did eventually, when a new generation of fictions more in line with the new norm of monogamy eventually appeared in the 13 th , 14 th and 15 th centuries). This was also Duby's hypothesis: 'It is generally accepted that the Cligès was composed in 1176. Should we believe that the social mores of France's nobility were changing at the time? Yes, they were changing.' (Duby, 2013, p. 180) Cultural artefacts thus present the remnants of people's past psychologies. In other words, they can function as cognitive fossils of extinct mentalities and preferences.

To validate further this assumption, we systematically compared the attitudes regarding romantic love expressed in literary works according to literary historians with the attitudes regarding romantic according to cultural historians. Importantly, cultural historians use a larger varietry of sources to study romantic love: letters, philosophical books, laws and so on. We thus searched academic works devoted to the cultural importance of romantic love in cultural history. While the literature on romantic love in cultural history is large, many works do not properly distinguish between specific historical periods. For instance, one can find academic work on 'romantic love in Ancient Greece' that, in fact, merge historical periods as different as Archaic Greece and Roman Greece. Moerover, such works usually focus on the period that produced the most documents (the Classical period in the case of Greece) and neglect the less developed periods.

We found 26 historical periods for which romantic love had been the object of a specific academic study (for more details about the methodology, see below section Material). This led to 13 cases of comparison. In all cases, the academic publications in literary history and the academic publications in cultural history were in agreement (see The Cultural Evolution of Love in Literary History, Table S24). In Rome, for instance, a range of cues indeed suggests that love became a more important value between the late Republic and the early empire: tomb inscriptions celebrating conjugal happiness, letters from exile lamenting the absence of the loved spouse (from Cicero, Ovid, Pliny), debates in the senate revealing the emotional bounds between spouses in aristocratic circles, philosophical treatises emphasizing the role of love in marriage (Plutarch's Conjugal Precepts, Musonius Rufus), biographies of exemplary women, etc. The cultural importance of romantic love also increased between the Tang and the Song, although scholarship is more limited. This increase is notably visible through women's private poetry, literary biographies of courtesans, as well as through funerary texts concerning women who start celebrating not only their fidelity, but also their emotional commitment to their lover (through voluntary seclusion, illness, even suicide) [START_REF] Bossler | Fantasies of Fidelity : Loyal Courtesans to Faithful Wives. Beyond Exemplar Tales: Women's Biography in Chinese History[END_REF]. The full details and the academic references used for these comparisons are available in the Ancient Literary Fictions Values Survey.

the same society (See Table S25). This later comparison provides another way to test the external validity of literary works. From a behavioral perspectice, attitudes toward romantic love and children should have the same dynamics (i.e. attitudes toward children should be more positive in societies where attitudes toward romantic love are more positive) [START_REF] Chisholm | Early stress predicts age at menarche and first birth, adult attachment, and expected lifespan[END_REF][START_REF] Fletcher | Pair-bonding, romantic love, and evolution : The curious case of homo sapiens[END_REF][START_REF] Quinlan | Parenting and Cultures of Risk : A Comparative Analysis of Infidelity, Aggression, and Witchcraft[END_REF]. Thus, the presence of romantic stories should be associated with culture-specific cues of the importance of childhood.

We searched academic works devoted to the cultural importance of romantic love in history.

Again, while the literature on the history of childhood in cultural history is large, many works do not properly distinguish between specific historical periods. In the end, we identified 10 cases of comparison. Of these 10 cases of comparison, the academic publications in literary history on romantic love and the academic publications on the attitudes toward children in cultural history were in agreement (see Table S25). In Rome, for instance, while there are very few inscriptions, no funerary monuments and almost no art dedicated to children during the Republic, children start being represented during the Augustan period and the frequency of children representation culminate under the Antonines, in the 2 nd c. CE [START_REF] Lovén | Children and Childhood in Roman Commemorative Art. The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World[END_REF][START_REF] Rawson | Children and childhood in Roman Italy[END_REF][START_REF] Rawson | The Roman family in Italy : Status, sentiment, space[END_REF]. Similarly, in China, , the corpus of writings commemorating a child's death began to grow steadily, from about 800 CE onward at the time where the first romantic stories start to be written [START_REF] Wilms | Tristan and Isolde's big move to Iceland : The cultural differences between Tristan by Thomas of Britain and Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar by[END_REF]. This up-ward trend goes on during the Ming and culminates during the Qing dynasties. The full details and the academic references used for these comparisons are available in the Ancient Literary Fictions Values Survey.

Periods References

Concordance between parental investment and romantic love Least developed Most developed

Archaic Greece Classical Greece Beaumont, 2003;Golden, 2015;Grubbs, 2013;Oakley, 2013 Yes Classical Greece Hellenistic Greece Beaumont, 2003 Yes Late Republic (Latin) Early Empire (Latin) Dixon, 1992;Golden, 2015;[START_REF] Lovén | Children and Childhood in Roman Commemorative Art. The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World[END_REF]Manson, 1983;McGinn, 2013;[START_REF] Rawson | Children and childhood in Roman Italy[END_REF]Veyne, 1978 Yes Early Medieval Europe Central Medieval Europe Doris, 1981;Forsyth, 1976;[START_REF] Gaffney | Constructions of Childhood and Youth in Old French Narrative[END_REF]Lasareff, 1938;Martindale, 1994;McLaughlin, 2004;Orme, 2003;Swanson, 1990;Vadin, 1978 Yes Central Medieval Europe Early Modern Europe Ariès, 1965;Cunningham, 1998;Fass, 2013;Heywood, 2017;Stone, 1977 Yes Pre-Tang dynasties Tang dynasty DeWoskin, 1995;Hung, 1995;Kinney, 1995;[START_REF] Wilms | Tristan and Isolde's big move to Iceland : The cultural differences between Tristan by Thomas of Britain and Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar by[END_REF]

LITERARY TRANSMISSION CHAINS

One further benefit of using literary works is that, in many cases, they are related to each other by way of long cultural transmission chains in which story lines are transmitted from one generation to the next. However, the chains of transmission do not consist in faithful transmission (like a fax machine) and blind imitations, but rather in transformations, mutations and innovating reworking [START_REF] Claidière | How Darwinian is cultural evolution?[END_REF][START_REF] Morin | How traditions live and die[END_REF][START_REF] Sperber | An objection to the memetic approach to culture[END_REF]. As historian of English literature Helen Cooper puts it:

New readers make new texts'; every generation brings different cultural expectations to works of the past and so finds new meanings and new things to respond to. (Cooper, 2004).

As a result of this process, love stories and romantic plots of the past are reworked generation after generation:

While the motifs of romance remain largely the same, the usage and understanding of them changes over time, in the same way that words themselves change meaning. (Cooper, 2004).

By comparing how the same story is told from one period to the next, the difference between each version can tell us how readers' preferences have changed from one period to the next.

The following sections presents three examples of such cultural transmission in detail in order to demonstrate how the same story line can be reworked very differently in different contexts.

THE WAR OF TROY

In the original story of the Trojan War (or at least in the earliest extant versions), romantic elements are rare if not absent. Set during the 10-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, the Iliad recounts the battles and events during the weeks following the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. When the Iliad evokes erotic passion, it is usually from the male point of view, and the audience's attention is directed not to the love story but to its political and social consequences (for a recent behavioral approach to the Iliad, see [START_REF] Gottschall | The rape of Troy : Evolution, violence, and the world of Homer[END_REF].

The Iliad inspired many subsequent works during antiquity, from tragedies to epics and epistolary poems. While many of the most ancient stories are not romantic, the later ones, such as Euripides' Helen, Statius' Achilleid, Virgil's Aeneid, and Ovid's Heroides give much more importance to romantic love. All these works are relatively well known, and I shall not discuss them further here.

Medieval authors rewrote the Greek archaic epics. The Roman de Troie (1155) is a rewriting of the war of Troy by the French writer Benoît de Sainte-Maure (though Benoît de Sainte-Maure probably did not have access to the Iliad itself, only to the late Roman works of Dictys' Ephemeris belli Trojani, and Dares ' De excidio Trojae historia). In his rewriting, Benoît injected love stories (Achilles-Polyxena, Diomedis/Troilus-Briseida) into the original story. Compared to Dares, the focus is less on martial deeds and more on psychological elements. Historian of Greek literature Kostas Yiavis summarizes here the differences between Benoit and Dares:

Love had played no substantial part in Dares": heroes had been attracted to heroines (and vice versa) on account of their beauty, not the nobility of their souls ( § §10, 27). Helen had been besotted, not quite in love, with Paris only to regret it later ( §11). Love had not inspired magnificent deeds: nothing good had come out of Achilles' passion for Polyxena but betrayal and death ( § § 27, 30, 34).

Benoît, by contrast, centralised love -and courtly love at that. He interlinked four love affairs (Jason-Medea, Paris-Helen, Achilles-Polyxena and Diomedis/Troilus-Briseida) with the Trojan War which he turned to a chivalric campaign. The narrative relied on the idea that nobility in rank and soul ended in prowess in the battlefield, which in turn entailed, according to courtly conventions, true love. Benoît's characters were no longer the one-dimensionally fierce warriors of Dares, but were capable of delicacy and yearning. (Yiavis, 2016) In turn, Benoît de Sainte-Maure's rewriting inspired subsequent versions in Western Europe (Chaucer, Boccaccio, etc.) but also in less developed areas such as Norway (Trójumanna saga) and Byzantium (War of Troy, Tale of Troy). Strikingly, these versions, while following the example of Benoît de Sainte-Maure's work in many ways, diverge from it when it comes to depicting romantic feelings and giving love a role in the development of the story (Goldwyn, 2010;Goldwyn & Nilsson, 2018;Yiavis, 2016).

Here is what Yiavis wrote about the Byzantium version of the Roman de Troie:

On the one hand, it retained the structure based on the four love-affairs introduced by Benoît. Dozens of details were drawn from some evidently chivalric source: the battles were jousts in which heroes unseated their opponents (for example, . Vriseida encouraged Diomidis, her subsequent suitor, by giving him a sleeve as a token of interest (II. 6521-2). Medea boldly invited Jason to spend a night of passion in her room (II. 412,. (Yiavis, 2016) On the other hand, the Byzantine version was clearly less romantic than the French original:

All love was proclaimed to be flawed and women fickle. Love hardly inspired the heroes to deeds of valour… it consistently caused devastation.… The romance rarely passed on a chance to drive home that when a young woman trusts a man, there ensues sexual permissiveness which is condemnable. (Yiavis, 2016) Yiavis concludes: "Somehow this distance which the War of Troy placed between itself and the courtly ideals of the Roman de Troie brought it closer to Dares whose muscular narrative had had no space for love." (Yiavis, 2016) In contrast to the Byzantine writers, the Western European writers who drew on Benoît de Sainte Maure made romantic love more important in their stories of the Trojan War, rather than less. This is the case notably of Boccaccio:

Unlike the writers in the romance tradition, who generally described the events of the war from beginning to end by translating the entirety of their source, Boccaccio drew from Benoît only those sections having to do with the love triangle between Priam's youngest son, Troilus; Cressida, the daughter of the Trojan prophet Calchas; and the Greek hero Diomedes. (…) Indeed all the essential elements of the love triangle in Il Filostrato are present in Benoît's Roman de Troie: Troilus's love of Briseida (later Criseida), Calchas's desertion to the Greeks, Briseida's transfer to Greek control in a prisoner exchange, and her ultimate betrayal of Troilus by falling in love with Diomede.

With respect to the plot, Boccaccio's contribution was in selecting the disjointed threads of the pre-existing story and weaving them into a unified whole that had tragic power. (Goldwyn, 2010) Boccaccio eventually inspired Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and, through Chaucer, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.

Alongside the evolution of the love story between Troilus and Cressida, other love stories developed, notably those of Achilles and Deidemia and of Eneas and Dido. The Trojan War tradition of early modern Europe is characterized by a flowering of highly romantic versions of older stories.

TRISTAN AND ISEULT

The story of Tristan and Iseult inspired many works in French [START_REF] Baumgartner | Tristan et Iseut : De la légende aux récits en vers[END_REF]Marchello-Nizia, 1995), English [START_REF] Baumgartner | Tristan et Iseut : De la légende aux récits en vers[END_REF]Marchello-Nizia, 1995), Italian (Psaki & Allaire, 2014), German [START_REF] Jackson | [END_REF], Icelandic [START_REF] Baumgartner | Tristan et Iseut : De la légende aux récits en vers[END_REF]Kalinke, 2011;Marchello-Nizia, 1995), Welsh [START_REF] Bromwich | The Arthur of the Welsh : The Arthurian legend in medieval Welsh literature[END_REF], Spanish (Torre, 2015), Dutch [START_REF] Jackson | [END_REF] and Belarussian (Kalinke, 2011). It probably originated at the court of Henry II of England around 1150 through the form of the so-called Estoire de Tristan (now lost), and then spread all over Europe (see Figure S13).

The Tristan and Iseult story has Celtic origins (see Figure S13). The name of Mark, Tristan and Iseult first appear together, and the story of Tristan and Iseult bears clear resemblances with Celtic tales such as 'Deirdre and Naoise', and 'Finn and Gráinne' since many of the elements of the plot of the latter are already present in the Celtic tales: the magic origin of love, the love triangle with the king, the flight into the forest, the sword that separates the sleeping lovers, the names of the characters, etc. (Cormier, 1976). The story of Tristan and Iseult probably started as a story of the wife (Iseult) of an aged lord (Mark) forcing (with the help of a magic potion) a reluctant warrior under this lord's command (Tristan) to escape with her, just as in some Irish tales such as Finn and Gráinne.

As Pierre Gallais writes:

Remove the geas, make Gráinne a true lover-which she is not (she does nothing to rejoin Diarmaid after he loses her at dice; she does not die on his body, but resigns herself to sharing the old chief's bed)-and, especially, make Diarmaid a lover: we would have something like a sequence from Tristan. (Gallais, 1974, p. 92 the translation is ours)

What the English author of the Estoire de Tristan did was to twist this original plot by focusing the narrative on the love story, rather than on the pursuit. All subsequent versions retain the basic elements of the original plot: the adulterous love of Tristan and Iseult, their hiding from King Mark, and the lovers' eventual death. However, it is striking that each version was adapted to its audience. In particular, the romantic elements flourished in the most developed areas of medieval Europe (France, Germany, Italy), but were toned down in the least developed areas, such as Norway and Belarus. For instance, the author of the Old Norse version, Brother Róbert, choose to omit much of the passages dealing with feelings, love and despair (Leach, 1921;Marchello-Nizia, 1995;[START_REF] Wilms | Tristan and Isolde's big move to Iceland : The cultural differences between Tristan by Thomas of Britain and Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar by[END_REF]. What interested Brother Róbert and his audience are the actions of Tristan, his combat against Mark and his feats, rather than his doubts about whether he should pursue his passion for Iseult.

Similarly, there are many differences between the Belarusian version Trysčan and the traditional legend of Tristan and Yseut. To begin with, Trysčan and Ižota fall in love before taking the potion. This decreases the dramatic potential of the story for the two characters cannot be the start-crossed lovers that they are in the original story, attracted to each other because they mistakenly drank a beverage that was not intended for them (Prieto, 2011). The absence of interest in the love story is also visible in the lack of intimate episodes between the two characters. In the Belarusian version, they do not escape to the Forest of Morrois. There is actually no forest in the version. Therefore, they do not spend time living their love in isolation as in the other European versions. Historian of East Slavic literature Torres Pietro concludes: "The Belarusian Trysčan is, paradoxically, not a story about love, either doomed or of any other kind. It is an account of the deeds of a bold hero and his fights, adventures and death" (Prieto, 2011).

In Western Europe, the Tristan and Iseult story also evolved over time. The later versions notably offered a more positive view of romantic passion. In the Prose Tristan (1230), for instance, Tristan becomes a Knight of the Round Table and joins the quest for the Holy Grail, and love is no longer a destructive passion.

Like Chrétien and the author of the Lancelot in Prose, the author of the Tristan in Prose makes love the living source of the knight's prowess. It is thanks to Isolde's love that Tristan triumphed over all his rivals and became almost equal to Lancelot. [START_REF] Baumgartner | Tristan et Iseut : De la légende aux récits en vers[END_REF] The same observations can be made for many later versions, in particular in Spain where the Tristan and Iseult tradition continued well into the 15 th and 16 th centuries. (Hook, 2015)

THE STORY OF YINGYING
The Biography of Yingying is one of the best-known short stories of the Tang. More importantly, this is the original story on which one of the most famous works of Chinese literature is based, namely the play The Story of the Western Wing. Another interesting feature is that some intermediate versions between the Tang tale and the Yuan play have survived (other are no longer extant though). Finally, because The Story of the Western Wing was so highly regarded during Chinese history, it has been commented and edited by later scholars. In particular, the edition of Jin Shengtan, with its important changes and its cut of the fifth and final act, can actually be considered as a version on its own. This version became so famous that it eclipsed the original version and that many readers (including the earliest western translators) became convinced that the fifth act was from another author. Thus, in the end, there are at least 5 versions of the story of Yingying, spanning eight hundred years: Scholars of Chinese literature have shown that the evolution of the story of Yingying parallels the general trend in favor of more romantic stories (Lanselle, 2015;Mair, 2012;Song, 2004;[START_REF] West | Wang Shifu's version does not alter the plot in dramatic manner, yet some change makes it more romantic[END_REF]. In the Tang version, there is no love at first sight. On the contrary, Yingying first rebukes the advance of Zhang. Even if she eventually accepts to sleep with him, we have no explanation about her change in mind, and the reasons behind her actions. Also, contrary to the Yuan version, there is no happy ending. Zhang goes to the capital for the imperial examination and abandons Yingying.

There are also other subtler differences. Compared to the later version, the first versions appear harsh and misogynistic. For instance, the narrator likens Yingying to the femmes fatales of the past who brought down the rulers of antiquity and declares for instance that he has "resolutely suppressed [his ]love" in order to resist her "evil influence." (Mair, 2012(Mair, , p. 1007) By contrast, in the second version, Zhao Lingzhi seems to condemn the behavior of the male protagonist and put more emphasis on the innocence and suffering of Yingying. The end of the work clearly condemns the male protagonist for his lack of love and his betrayal of Yingying.

The major turn seems to have occurred under the Song, between versions 2 and 3 when Dong Jieyan changed the ending of the story (in which the male character leaves Yingying once in the capital) and replaced it with a happy ending. Moreover, the characterization of Yingying is now well developed: while in the Tang story, Yingying appears unpredictable and unreliable, in the Song story, she is portrayed as a passionate and intelligent but well-educated maiden, torn between her emotion and her equally strong sense of morality. Wang Shifu's version does not alter the plot in dramatic manner, yet some change makes it more romantic. For instance, in Wang's play, it is not student Zhang who wants to leave to take part in the examination, but Yingying's mother who requires that Zhang succeed in the examination to agree to the couple's marriage. More generally, student Zhang appears more idealized and put in a morally more advantageous position (Song, 2004). Jin Shengtan's version illustrates the fact that at least from the 15 th century on, Chinese readers became increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that Yingying and Zhang had sex before the marriage. The play was considered by many as "irreverent" and "light". One of Jin Shengtan's concern was thus to safeguard Yingying from any accusation of indecency. He attempts this by proving that she remains chaste under all circumstances-even when she gives herself to the student Zhang (Lanselle, 2015;[START_REF] West | Wang Shifu's version does not alter the plot in dramatic manner, yet some change makes it more romantic[END_REF] In another Ming version, the author even outdoes Jin Shengtan in preserving Yingying's virginity by having the maid stand for her during the night with Zhang [START_REF] Dong | The Many Faces of Cui Yingying[END_REF]. Thus, during more than 800 years, the basic plot was transmitted from one generation of writers to the next, and even passed from one genre to the other, despite the sometimes contradictory requirements of each genre (Lanselle, 2015;[START_REF] West | Wang Shifu's version does not alter the plot in dramatic manner, yet some change makes it more romantic[END_REF]. At the same time, the story changed dramatically through this process probably in response to the change in the test of the public.

POTENTIAL ISSUES IN USING NARRATIVES TO STUDY BEHAVIORAL CHANGES IN

HISTORY

DO LITERARY GENRES CONSTRAIN THE CONTENT OF NARRATIVE FICTIONS?

One issue that could call into question the use of love stories as a cross-cultural indicator of investment in romantic attachment are literary constraints. It could be the case that some literary traditions' focus on certain topics (e.g., politics and war for tragedy), or their stylistic requirements (e.g., unity of place, time and action for classical plays), hinder the expression of love stories. This is a widely shared assumption in the history of literature. Here, for instance, is how Phyllis Gaffney explains this problem in her study of old French narratives:

Genres shape content, just as character and plot are connected. If the generic convention requires heroic combat, young protagonists displaying brute strength in battle will be celebrated; if, on the other hand, the conventions require a protagonist to fall in love, then young characters have to be taken to a plausible stage of maturity (emotional, cognitive and psychological as well as biological) appropriate for romantic entanglements. The warrior ethos of the chansons de geste requires less complex youthful types than the romance, with its focus on the introspective individual, whose identity and character the narrative must reveal. [START_REF] Gaffney | Constructions of Childhood and Youth in Old French Narrative[END_REF] One problem with this understanding is the assumption that generic constraints are exogenous-in other words, that they are imposed on the writers and their audience. However, it may very well be the other way around, i.e., that writers choose the genre that best fits their purpose: if they want 'romantic entanglements', they will turn to romances, and adopt some of their conventions, while if they want 'heroic combat', they will turn to epics, and their conventions. This would explain why, in 12 th -century France, for instance, when love and marriage came to be much more culturally valued, a new generation of writers such as Chrétien de Troyes gave up on chansons de geste and turned to new genres (verse romance, prose romance) because the latter were more suited to telling the kind of stories their audience wanted.

And in fact, the history of literature demonstrates that genres do not shape content as much as one might think. Love stories are present in all kinds of literary genres, from novels (Leucippe and Clitophon, Rodanthe and Dosikles) to drama (Romeo and Juliet, The Story of the Western Wing) to short stories (Pyrasmus and Thisbe, The Biography of Yingying) and long poems (Tristan and Isold, Khosrow and Shirin).

Greek tragedy is a good example of the flexibility of generic constraints. Originally, it was a highly codified genre (e.g., unity of time, genre and action) with a focus on political events and calamities. And yet, transposed into early modern Europe, it eventually gave rise to many love stories. For instance, in adapting the plot of ancient tragedies (Euripides' Hippolytus, Seneca's Phaedra) to create his Phèdre, Racine added a love story between Hippolytus and Aricie, a character who does not exist in Euripides' Hippolytus or Seneca's Phaedra. Similarly, in their rewritings of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Corneille and Dryden added a love story as a subplot: between Theseus and Dircé in Corneille's case, and between Adrastus and Eurydice (Oedipus' daughter) in Dryden's.

To take yet another example, if Sophocles had wanted to put greater emphasis on the love story between Antigone and Haemon in his Antigone, he could very well have done so. He could have chosen to focus the audience's attention on the separation of the two lovers, just as Shakespeare did with his Romeo and Juliet. And yet he choose to focus his tragedy on moral issues and family relationships (Creon carrying his son's body, Eurydice, Creon's wife, killing herself and cursing him, etc.). Sophocles' focus on moral issues rather than on romantic love is probably not the result of generic constraints specific to the tragedy, but the consequence of his audience's preferences for stories about moral values and family solidarity. As a matter of fact, a few decades later, a new genre of tragedies emerged that was more similar to modern drama. Euripides's Helen, for instance, is centered on the personal, intimate relationship between Helen and Menelaus. In this new genre, romantic feelings came to have a more important role (Gibert, 1999;Segal, 1971;Walcot, 1987). And naturally, Euripides' new version of the story of Antigone also placed a much greater emphasis on love.

DO SOCIAL NORMS PREVENT THE EMERGENCE OF LOVE STORIES?

Another factor that could prevent the use of love stories as a cross-cultural indicator of investment in romantic attachment is social constraints. It could be the case that some social norms, such as sexual segregation, female modesty, and condemnation of premarital sex hinder the expression of love stories in literary narratives.

Here again, however, this does not seem to be the case. The evolution of ancient comedy during antiquity is a good example of the adaptability of literature to social norms. In Greek and Roman comedy, the depiction of love was indeed initially limited to the male character (Konstan, 2014). The reason was that citizen girls could not appear on stage and that it was not proper for them to express their opinion about marriage. But this did not prevent Roman authors from portraying young female citizens in love. One way to represent women's desire was to tell a story with a woman of lesser status: a slave, a courtesan, or a stranger who was not subject to the same social norms. This artifice allowed the writers to let female characters express their feelings, as in Terence's Heauton Timorumenos ("I'm sure that I have, indeed, always used every endeavor to derive my own happiness from his happiness." Act II, Sc. 3) or Plautus' Cistellaria ("I am being tortured, my dear Gymnasium; I am in a sad way, sadly suffering; I ache in my heart, ache in my eyes, ache in my agony"-to which Gymnasium replies: "This woman is in love!" Act I, Sc. 1) (Rudd, 1981). Obviously, this made marriage (and the happy ending) impossible if it was not discovered conveniently that the girl was a citizen after all, the kidnapped or lost or exposed daughter of the rich family next door. In the end, despite the constraints of the Roman comedy, a handful of comedies (Heauton Timorumenos, Cistellaria, Andria, Curculio, possibly Samia) managed to tell typical love stories in which a girl and a boy, both young, beautiful and respectable, meet and fall in love, face and overcome some obstacles to their love, and are finally reunited (Rudd, 1981).

More generally, it must be noted that most of the stories reviewed in this study were written in societies where females' freedom was severely limited, and contact between young people often impossible [START_REF] Betzig | Roman polygyny[END_REF][START_REF] Betzig | Medieval monogamy[END_REF][START_REF] Dickemann | Paternal confidence and dowry competition : A biocultural analysis of purdah[END_REF]. In Falling in Love: Stories from Ming China [START_REF] Hanan | Falling in Love : Stories from Ming China[END_REF], Patrick Hanan notes that in Romeo and Juliet, the two lovers are able to meet, chat and (in some versions) dance with each other. This would have been impossible in Ming China: "A Chinese Romeo was unlikely to be able to see Juliet, let alone to serenade her." Yet despite social norms making it impossible for young lovers to meet and live out their love stories in real life, love stories abound in the literature of the Ming dynasty, demonstrating that social norms do not prevent romantic literature from flourishing. In this perspective, it is striking that social norms were looser during the Tang dynasty [START_REF] Hsieh | Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction[END_REF][START_REF] Leung | L'Amour en Chine. Relations et pratiques sociales aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles[END_REF][START_REF] Sommer | Sex, law, and society in late imperial China[END_REF], and yet the love stories of this period were less romantic, not more.

METHODS AND RESULTS

This study leverages the academic literature in literary history. The Ancient Literary Fictions Values Survey reviews the literary production of 77 standard historical periods in 19 geographical areas covering the major literary cultures of Eurasia.

CATEGORICAL METHOD (ABSENCE/PRESENCE OF HRL STORIES)

We started with Konstan's work on sexually symmetric stories as a benchmark for stories high in romantic love. A story is considered as HRL (i.e. High on Romantic Love) when it features narrative elements associated with pair-bonding:

1) idealization of the partner (e.g. love at first sight), 2) emotional attachment (e.g. tragic separations), 3) long-term commitment (e.g. vows of eternal fidelity), 4) reordering of life priorities (e.g. suicide), and when these elements are displayed by both the male and the female characters (i.e. the story is symmetric, see Konstan 2014). Such a definition clearly includes the Ancient Greek novels, the Chinese caizi-jiaren stories, the Chilvalric romances (e.g. Tristan and Iseult) as well as typical love stories such as Layla and Majnun in Arabic and Shirin and Koshrow in Persian.

We hypothesize that within the same literary tradition, stories High in Romantic Love should be more frequent in economically more developed periods. Because we used a binary category (absence or presence of HRL stories), we needed to decide on a threshold of economic development above which HRL stories should be more frequent. We used Western Europe as a benchmark because it is the best studied area in both literary history and economic history. With this method, and choosing 1100 CE for the emergence of romantic love stories in Western Europe, we get the following thresholds for 'High Economic Development':

1) $700 in per capita GDP [START_REF] Bassino | [END_REF], 2) 3% in urbanization (Bosker et al., 2013) 3) 20,000 kcal/cap/day energy capture (Morris, 2013) Hypothesis 1 is that HRL stories should be more likely to be observed by historians of literature in societies where at least one of the above indicators indicates a high level of economic development.

Confirming Hypothesis 1, the study reveals that economic development is associated with an increase in the frequency of romantic stories (see Table 1). Of the 77 units of observation, the only exception is the Late Roman Latin period, a 'high' period where Romantic Love Stories are nonetheless absent. This may be due to the very low number of narrative works available for this period or to the economic crisis of the period.

Period Economic Development

Love stories (* indicates inconsistencies with economic trends)

Examples of Romantic Love Stories

Greece: 800 BCE -1800 CE #7 Archaic Greece Low No [START_REF] Booker | The seven basic plots : Why we tell stories[END_REF]Finley, 1965;Konstan, 2014;Naerebout, 1987#8 Classical Greece High Yes Daniel-Müller, 2008;Dirat, 1976;Gibert, 1999;Handley, 1985;[START_REF] Jouanno | Un roman exemplaire : L'histoire d'Abradate et de Panthée au fil des siècles[END_REF]Konstan, 2014;Reichel, 2010;Rudd, 1981;Segal, 1971;Walcot, 1987 Abradatas and Panthea (in Cyropedia)

#9 Hellenistic World High Yes [START_REF] Beye | Jason as love-hero in Apollonios' Argonautica. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies[END_REF][START_REF] Billault | La littérature dans les Erotica Pathémata de Parthénios[END_REF]Brown, 1993;Clauss & Cuypers, 2010;[START_REF] Cusset | Le Jason d'Apollonios de Rhodes : Un personnage romanesque?[END_REF][START_REF] Hägg | The virgin and her lover : Fragments of an ancient Greek novel and a Persian epic poem[END_REF]Konstan, 2014;[START_REF] Mary | Apollonius' Argonautica[END_REF][START_REF] Phinney | Narrative unity in the Argonautica, the Medea-Jason romance[END_REF]Reichel, 2010;Rudd, 1981;[START_REF] Schmeling | The novel in the ancient world[END_REF]Walcot, 1987;[START_REF] Whitmarsh | Prose Fiction[END_REF]Zanker, 1979 [START_REF] Brockington | The Sanskrit Epics[END_REF][START_REF] Orsini | Love in South Asia : A cultural history[END_REF]Thundy, 1981;[START_REF] Van Buitenen | The Mahabharata, volume 1 : Book 1: the book of the beginning[END_REF] #17 Classical period High Yes Ali, 2004[START_REF] Ali | Courtly love and the aristocratic household in early medieval India[END_REF][START_REF] Nadarajah | Love in Sanskrit and Tamil Literature : A Study of Characters and Nature[END_REF][START_REF] Orsini | Love in South Asia : A cultural history[END_REF]Parkhill,1984;[START_REF] Rajappa | Kadambari[END_REF][START_REF] Van Buitenen | The Mahabharata, volume 1 : Book 1: the book of the beginning[END_REF][START_REF] Van Buitenen | The Mahabharata[END_REF]Zvelebil, 1973 Behl, 2007Behl, , 2016 ; ;d'Hubert, 2018 ;Datta, 1988 ;[START_REF] Deol | To die at the hands of love : Conflicting ideals of love in the Punjabi Mirza-Sahiban cycle[END_REF][START_REF] Paniker | Medieval Indian Literature : Surveys and selections[END_REF]Suvorova, 2000 Sihrul Bayan, Qissa-e-ul-Muluko-Badi-il-Jamal, Kotiyaviraham, Kalikamangal, Kanakalata, Sassui Punnhun Persia 500 BCE -1800

#21 Pre-Islamic period High Yes [START_REF] Cross | The poetics of romantic love in "Vis & Rāmin[END_REF][START_REF] Davis | Vis o Rāmin[END_REF]Gallais, 1974 ;[START_REF] Hägg | The virgin and her lover : Fragments of an ancient Greek novel and a Persian epic poem[END_REF]Meisami, 2014;Stoneman, Erickson & Netton, 2012 Vis and Rāmin, Metiochus and Parthenope #22 Early Islamic period (Golden Age) High Yes Meisami, 2014;[START_REF] Miquel | Majnûn et Laylâ[END_REF]Safa, 1986 ;Seyed-Gohrab, A. A. (2009). [START_REF] Hsieh | Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction[END_REF]Huang, 2001;[START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF]Song, 2004 ;[START_REF] Starr | Red-light novels of the late Qing[END_REF] Iu-Kiao- Blachère, 1952;Gallais, 1974;Jacobi, 1998;Meisami, 2014;Meisami & Starkey, 1998;Vadet, 1968 #34 Abbasid Caliphate (Classical period)

Bijan and Manijeh

High

Yes Blachère, 1952;[START_REF] Hämeen-Anttila | The essay and debate (al-risāla and al-munāẓara). The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period[END_REF]Meisami, & Starkey, 1998;[START_REF] Vadet | L'esprit courtois en Orient dans les cinq premiers siècles de l'Hégire[END_REF] Layla and Majnun, Jamil and Buthayna, Qays and Lubna Benson, 2001;Burgess, & Pratt, 2006;Gaunt, & Kay, 2008;Gibbs, M. E., & Johnson, 2000;Gies, 2004;Hook, 2015[START_REF] Jackson | [END_REF]Krueger, 2000;Marchello-Nizia, 1995;Psaki & Allaire, 2014;[START_REF] Rougemont | L'Amour et l'Occident[END_REF]Scanlon, 2009 Brand, Brand, & Pertile, 1999;[START_REF] Brown | A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture[END_REF][START_REF] Brown-Grant | French romance of the later Middle Ages : Gender, morality, and desire[END_REF]Gibbs, & Johnson, 2000;Gies, 2004;[START_REF] Kelly | Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer[END_REF]Strietman, 1992 [START_REF] Keene | Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu[END_REF]Keene, , 1999;;[START_REF] Walter | Érotique du Japon classique[END_REF] The Love Suicides at Sonezaki, The Love Suicides at Amijima, Uranimosuke, Five Women Who Loved Love

Ireland: 700 -1800 #69 Early Medieval period Low No [START_REF] Gregory | Cuchulain of Muirthemne : The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster[END_REF]Kinsella, 2002;[START_REF] Mccurry | From Domestic Warrior to" Some mild modern housewife" : Lady Gregory's Transformation of the Deirdre Story[END_REF]Mercier, 1987;Mhaonaigh, 2006;o'Cathasaigh, 2006;Oosterhout, 2006;Pereira, 2007#70 Central Medieval period Low No Cormier, 1975;Mhaonaigh, 2006;ó Cathasaigh, 2006;Pereira, 2007 #71 Late Medieval period Low No Cathasaigh, 2014;Cormier, 1976;Gallais, 1974;Hollo, 2006 [START_REF] Bandlien | Strategies of passion : Love and marriage in medieval Iceland and Norway[END_REF]Boyer, 1995;[START_REF] Cook | Gunnarr and Hallgerðr : A Failed Romance. n Wolf & Dezin, Romance and love in late medieval and early modern Iceland[END_REF][START_REF] Kalinke | Bridal-quest romance in medieval Iceland[END_REF]Kalinke, 2011, Sävborg, 2007[START_REF] Wolf | Romance and Love in Late Medieval and Early Modern Iceland : Essays in Honor of Marianne Kalinke[END_REF]

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

The categorical approach has evident drawbacks. First, quantitative economic indicators are limited for most ancient societies. Deciding whether a society is above or below a certain threshold is risky for a lot of cases. By contrast it is possible to compare the relative level of economic development of two societies even if the precision of economic estimates is limited. Dichotomous classifications (i.e. romantic / non-romantic) create similar problems, because there is some freedom in deciding whether a story is high in romantic love.

Hypothesis 2 aims to overcome these limitations by comparing the relative importance of romantic love within the literary production of two periods (e.g. Tang and Song dynasties) within the same literary tradition (Chinese). Again, a story is considered as more romantic than another when it features more narrative elements associated with pair-bonding:

1) idealization of the partner (e.g. love at first sight), 2) emotional attachment (e.g. tragic separations), 3) long-term commitment (e.g. vows of eternal fidelity), 4) reordering of life priorities (e.g. suicide), and when these elements are more symmetrically displayed by both the male and the female characters.

Importantly, a pair of periods was included in the study only when the comparison between the two periods had been the object of an academic publication in literary history. The exception is when the comparison is straightforward, for instance when there are attested love stories in one period and no love stories in the other (which makes the comparison unambiguous).

Confirming Hypothesis 2, the study reveals that economic development is associated with an increase in the relative importance of romantic love in literature. , 2001;Lee, 2006;[START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF]Song, 2004;[START_REF] Starr | Red-light novels of the late Qing[END_REF] Arab world: 500 -1800

#13 Pre-Islamic and early Islamic period Abbasid period Increase Increase Blachère, 1952;Gallais, 1974;Jacobi, 1998;Meisami, 2014;Meisami & Starkey, 1998;[START_REF] Vadet | L'esprit courtois en Orient dans les cinq premiers siècles de l'Hégire[END_REF] #14 Classical period Post-Classical Decrease Decrease Allen, 1992;Cachia, 2003;Heath, 2006;Kruk, 2006;Reynolds, 2006;Starkey, 2006 Western , 2004;[START_REF] Hasty | Early Germanic literature and culture[END_REF]Lees, 2012;[START_REF] Mantello | Epic: Early Roman Empire and Late Medieval period During the Late Medieval period, epics starts to be written in vernacular languages. It is only in Italy, where the Latin and Greek literature were better known at the time that epics such as Petrarch's Africa (1397)[END_REF][START_REF] Murdoch | German literature of the early Middle Ages[END_REF]Benson, 2001;Burgess, & Pratt, 2006;Gaunt, & Kay, 2008;Gibbs, M. E., & Johnson, 2000;Gies, 2004;Hook, 2015[START_REF] Jackson | [END_REF]Krueger, 2000;Marchello-Nizia, 1995;Psaki & Allaire, 2014;[START_REF] Rougemont | L'Amour et l'Occident[END_REF]Scanlon, 2009 Hypotheses 1 and 2 are applied to the literary production of a given period. However, this method does not control for the literary genre present in each period. It could be that certain genres are more likely to involve love, and that these genres are unevenly distributed across periods. To control for that possibility, narrative fictions belonging to the same genre (comedy, tragedy, epics) were compared across period, using the same criteria as for Hypothesis 2.

Controlling for the genre raises some methodological problem though. Consider the genre of epics, a genre that is very present in the ancient literature. Definitions of epic often mention features 'such as a cosmic scale; a serious purpose; a setting in the distant past; the presence of heroic and supernatural characters; and plots pivoting on wars or quests.' (Martin, 2005) Yet, there are no clear and consensual criteria to decide whether a narrative work is an epic (on the generic identity of chanson de geste, see for instance (Busby, 2008)). As a result, widely different narratives tend to be defined as 'epic': the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, the Indian Mahābhārata, the Greek Iliad and the Odyssey, the medieval French chanson de geste, the Japanese Heike Monogatari, the Old Norse saga, the Old English Beowulf, etc. In the Ancient Near East literature, other labels are thus used interchangeably 'among them ''geste'' (unfolding exploits, often assonantic), ''legend'' (fabulous story with historicizing touches), ''saga'' (family histories, occasionally heroic, often in multiple episodes), ''folktale'' (traditional, anonymous, and placeless narrative), and ''romance'' (not unlike legend, but accentuating intimate goals).' (Sasson, 2005, p. 221) In the end, there is no general agreement, even between specialists of the same literary tradition: 'We now find ''maximalists,'' for whom an epic must have breadth, a noble vision, and national or ethnic symbolism, and ''minimalists,'' for whom the genre applies whenever two characters are tracked beyond a thousand words'. (Sasson, 2005, p. 222) Using the genre 'epics' in a loose sense would have inevitably created some bias in data analysis. Literary genres were thus defined very strictly on the basis of the literary constraints explicitly shared by the writers. With this rule, Archaic Greek, Hellenistic, Latin and European epics can thus be compared to each other because the Latin and the Early modern European writers explicitly aimed to narrative in the genre of the Greek Archaic epics. This is not the case for the French chanson de geste or the Norse saga that did not aim to emulate the Greek epics.

Regarding Western theater, Greek, Latin and Early Modern European tragedies can be compared to each other. As Francesca Schironi writes: 'Therefore, even if some innovations were allowed, the theoretical debate, for the most part, promoted either Greek or Roman tragedy as the only viable model to follow. As a result, all tragedies written in Renaissance Italy were fundamentally neoclassical, because they formally complied with Classical rules.' (Schironi, 2016). By contrast, the medieval miracle plays and liturgical drama did not belong to the same tradition.

The same observation can be made for comedies: the Hellenistic, Latin and Early Modern traditions share the same generic constraints (Wyles, 2016). This is also the case of the plays of the German canoness Hrotsvitha (c. 935 -973) and the elegiac comedies of 12th and 13th because they were all written on the model of the Latin comedy [START_REF] Symes | For instance[END_REF]. This is not the case of the medieval farce and medieval plays like Le jeu de Marianne et Robin, which was rather inspired by the medieval pastourelle.

A similar decision was taken regarding Chinese and Japanese theater. In China, zaju and chuanqi do not share the same constraints (for instance, the number of acts is much higher in chuanqi plays than in zaju plays). Thus, they cannot be considered as belonging to the same genre. In the same way, noh, kabuki and bunraku cannot be compared because they do not have the same generic constraints.

Confirming Hypothesis 3, the study confirm that economic development is associated with an increase in the relative importance of romantic love in literary genres both within and across literary traditions. 2006, 2008;Fantuzzi, 2008;Knight, 1995;[START_REF] Mary | Apollonius' Argonautica[END_REF], Zanker, 1979 Archaic Greece (ex: Iliad) [START_REF] Greer | The development of national theatre[END_REF][START_REF] Joeres | The German Enlightenment (1720-1790[END_REF]Strietman, 1992;Wyles, 2016 Table S3: Relative level of romantic love by area, by period and by genre (Periods where prediction and/or data are unconclusive have been excluded. For the full list and the references, see each section below)

#

COMPARATIVE METHOD BETWEEN SIMILAR STORY LINES

Hypotheses 1 and 2 are applied to the literary production of a given period. But they do not control for the size of this production. It could be the case that a literary period appears more romantic simply because it produces more fictions, which would mechanically increase the number of love stories, and the intensity of the most romantic ones. One way to circumvent this problem is to compare how the same story line (e.g. the War of Troy, the Song of Roland, the Story of Yinying) is told in different periods. This allows comparing periods where there are very few works (e.g. Hellenistic World, Central Medieval Wales).

To study the evolution of story lines over time, a systematic research was done for all possible story lines before the Early Modern period. First, we used Wikipedia in which reworking are often mentioned in a specific section called 'Historical adaptations' or 'Cultural influence'. Second, we searched for specific academic resources devoted to the cultural evolution of specific story lines (e.g. A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama, Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages).

Again, a story is considered as more romantic than another when it features more narrative elements associated with pair-bonding:

1) idealization of the partner (e.g. love at first sight), 2) emotional attachment (e.g. tragic separations), 3) long-term commitment (e.g. vows of eternal fidelity), 4) reordering of life priorities (e.g. suicide),

and when these elements are more symmetrically displayed by both the male and the female characters.

To 2008;Dirat, 1976;Gibert, 1999;Handley, 1985;Rudd, 1981;Segal, 1971;Walcot, 1987 #2 Hellenistic Greece Datta, 1989;Rao, 2003 Table S4: Relative level of romantic love by area, by period and by story line (Periods where prediction and/or data are unconclusive have been excluded. For the full list and the references, see each section below).

A NOTE ON THE TERMINOLOGY OF LOVE

In cultural history, the rise of love is associated with a variety of labels such as 'courtly love' and 'romantic love'. In this paper, use the term 'romantic' to qualify a narrative or a period for which pair-bonding, is more important and we use the term HRL stories to qualify stories where narratives features are centered on pair-bonding. This HRL label is crucial, because it allows the reader to keep in mind that the survey focuses on a much more limited sample of stories.

1. ANCIENT EGYPT (2000 BCE -300 BCE) LITERARY FICTIONS: TIMELINE AND GENERAL REMARKS Writing in ancient Egypt first appeared in the late 4th millennium BC during the late phase of predynastic Egypt. By the Old Kingdom (26 th c. BC to 22 nd c. BC), literary works included funerary texts, epistles and letters, hymns and poems, and commemorative autobiographical texts (Lichtheim, 2019). However, it was not until the early Middle Kingdom (21 st c. BC) that a narrative Egyptian literature emerge (although it is possible that it existed in the Old Kingdom). Major narrative works from the Middle Kingdom (21 st c. BC to 17 th c. BC) include the Tale of the Court of King Cheops, King Neferkare and General Sasenet, The Eloquent Peasant, Story of Sinuhe, and Tale of the shipwrecked sailor (Erman, 2015;Faulkner, 2003;J. L. Foster, 2009;Lichtheim, 2019). The New Kingdom corpus of tales (17 st c. BC to 11 th c. BC) includes the Quarrel of Apepi and Seqenenre, Taking of Joppa, Tale of the doomed prince, Tale of Two Brothers, and the Report of Wenamun. Stories from the 1 st millennium BC also exist from Tale of Setne Khamwas and Si-Osire to the Inaros cycle (Dieleman & Moyer, 2010;Erman, 2015;Faulkner, 2003;Foster, 2009;Lichtheim, 2019;Manasaa, 2013;[START_REF] Ritner | The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry[END_REF][START_REF] Vinson | The craft of a good scribe : history, narrative and meaning in the 'First tale of Setne Khaemwas[END_REF]. The stopping date of the study is the late 4th c. with the victory of Alexander, the foundation of Alexandria, and the colonization of Egypt by the Greeks. After this date, it is difficult to distinguish the socioeconomic basis of the Greek and the Egyptian literatures.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Quantitative economic indicators are very sparse for Ancient Egypt. Limited estimates are available for density (McEvedy et al., 1978) and urban population [START_REF] Chandler | Four thousand years of urban growth : An historical census[END_REF]. Urban life emerged very early one, suggesting that living standards (at least for elite people) were probably higher than in small-scale and tribal societies. Also, it is possible to show a gradual development of economic institutions, and a probable decrease of transaction costs (Muhs, 2016), which would suggest some amount of economic growth. However, compared to later urban societies such as Classical Greece or Han China, development seem rather limited. As a matter of fact, density in Egypt in 150 BCE (during the Hellenistic period) was probably twice the density of the density in 1250 BCE (New Kingdom) [START_REF] Bowman | Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt[END_REF].

Morris (Morris, 2013) estimated that Energy Capture in Ancient Egypt rose from 11 000 kcal/cap/day in 3000 BC to 21 000 kcal/cap/day in 1200 BC (with a small decline afterward). This is higher than post-Neolithic populations (5000 to 1000 kcal/cap/day) but substantially low compared to 24 000 kcal/cap/day in Classical Greece, 26 000 kcal/cap/day in Han China and 31 000 kcal/cap/day in Rome. Thus, Ancient Egypt seems to occupy an intermediate level of development: higher than the early agriculturalists, but lower than most later civilizations. By the same logic, Ancient Egypt, despite its massive monuments, probably had living standards much lower than medieval Europe at least from the 11 th -12 th c. on. For instance, Morris estimate that in 11 th c. England, a rather backward country at the time, energy capture as around 21 000 kcal/cap/day, that is on a par with Ancient at its peak (Morris, 2013).

Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, Late period HRL stories seem to be absent. Note however, that love songs are present during the period (Dieleman, J., & Moyer,;2010;Erman, 2015;Faulkner, 2003;J. L. Foster, 2009;Lichtheim, 2019). However, it is unknown whether New Kingdom just enabled an inscripturation of a previously well-developed oral genre, or whether the poetry really developed during that period specifically [START_REF] Landgráfová | Sex and the golden goddess[END_REF]. In any case, it is very difficult to draw any conclusion regarding the chronology of these poems.

Another way to study the question of the presence of HRL stories is to ask, as John [START_REF] Barns | Egypt and the Greek Romance', Akten 8. Kongress für Papyrologie[END_REF] did, whether the Egyptian literature played a role in the origins of the Greek romance of the Hellenistic and Roman periods (see below sections Hellenistic world and early Roman Greek world). Barns notably pointed to the Pedikhons and Serpot episode of Egyptians and Amazons and to a narrative concerning Bes which seems to have been part of the Inaros Cycle (which could possibly predate the Greek invasion). However, as Ian Rutherford argues, the plot is very different from that of the Greek romances. It does not emphasize attachment, nor long-term commitment and mutual love. As Ian [START_REF] Rutherford | Greek fiction and Egyptian fiction. The Romance between Greece and the East[END_REF] notes 'It is also much shorter, a minor narrative within the back story of the campaigns of Inaros, whereas, in the Greek novel, the love story is the main thing, and the military events are subsidiary.' Since Barns, new texts have been published. However, as Rutherfod concludes, they 'do not contain anything that looks like the precursor of a bona fide Greek romance'.

It is difficult to conclude from this absence of evidence that there are is evidence of absence. The extant Ancient Egyptian narrative literature is very limited, and it might be the case that there existed highly romantic stories that are now lost.

Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age and Iron Age

Love lyrics are attested during the period. However, there are no Highly Romantic Love stories (Black et al., 2006;Foster, 2009;[START_REF] Knippschild | Literature in Western Asia. A Companion to Hellenistic Literature[END_REF]Lambert, 1996;Nogel, 2005).

Just like for the Egyptian literature, another way to study the question of the presence of HRL stories is to ask whether the Egyptian literature played a role in the origins of the Greek romance of the Hellenistic and Roman periods (see below sections Hellenistic world and early Roman Greek world). A number of Greek novels indeed seem to build on Mesopotamian material (as well as Persian romances, see section Persian world below). This is notably the case with the Ninus romance (1st c. CE) [START_REF] Dalley | The Greek Novel 'Ninus and Semiramis[END_REF], which may be based on the mythical queen Semiramis, probably based on the real-life Assyrian Sammu-ramat as well as with the love stories told by Ctesias in his now lost Persica [START_REF] Whitmarsh | Dirty Love: The Genealogy of the Ancient Greek Novel[END_REF]. Despite the Mesopotamian settings of these stories, no definitive argument can be put forward in favor of the idea that these love stories predate the Persian invasion. In fact, it is more probable that they are the product of the interactions between the Greek culture and the Persian culture after the conquest of Alexander [START_REF] Whitmarsh | Dirty Love: The Genealogy of the Ancient Greek Novel[END_REF].

Greece and Asia Minor, from the 3 rd c. BCE Greek works are mainly produced outside of Greece, first in Alexandria (Apollonius, Callimachus), in Asia Minor and later in Constantinople (Byzantine novels).

After the decline of the Roman Empire, no narrative fictions are known in Byzantium from the 7 th to the 11 th century. A lay reading public probably existed up until the 7 th c., but ceased to exist after this date. Saints lives and historical chronicles continued to be written with some translation of religious fables from the Arabic such as Barlaam and Ioasaph in the 9 th century (Kazhdan et al., 1999). Literary fictions reappeared only around 1100 with the epics Digenes Akrites followed by romances such as Rodanthe and Dosikles (c. 1143), Drosilla and Charikles (c. 1157), Arístandros and Kallithéa (c. 1160) and Hysmine and Hysminias (c. 1180) by Eustathios Makrembolites (Beaton, 2012;[START_REF] Jeffreys | Four Byzantine Novels[END_REF]. Late medieval romances continued this literary tradition with Belthandros and Chrysantza, Kallimachos and Chrysorroi or the Tale of Achille. After the fall of Byzantium, a brief 'Cretan Renaissance' under the Venetian rule occurred in the 17 th century with important works such as the long poem Erotokritos by Vitsentzos Kornaros or plays such as Erofili and Panoria.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

From 800 to 300 BCE, economic indicators suggest that affluence increased in the Greek world (Greece, the Aegean, Sicily and Southern Italy). During this period, population increased by 1500% (from 0,5 to 8,5 millions) (Hansen, 2006;McEvedy et al., 1978;Ober, 2015), urbanization went from 0% to 25% (Hansen, 2006;Morris, 2006a;Ober, 2015) and GDP per capita probably tripled from $400 to $1200 (Milanovic, 2016;Morris, 2013a;Ober, 2015). These quantitative indexes are confirmed by other indicators such as hoards size or house size (Morris, 2013a;Ober, 2015). For instance, while median Greek house in the 9th century was small, became both much bigger and much better built over the next 500 years. Looking at square footage alone, the change in the size of the median house is over 350%-from ca. 80 square meters to ca. 360 square meters (Morris, 2013a;Ober, 2015).

After the 3 rd c. BCE, core Greece experienced a period of decline (Morris, 2013b;Ober, 2015). However, the decline was not uniform, and there is some economic growth in the newly Hellenized kingdoms in Egypt, Asia Minor or Syria with cities such as Alexandria (300 000 inhabitants in 300 BC, and 400 000 in 200 BC), Antioch (250 000 inhabitants) and Pergamon (200 000 inhabitants) (Morris, 2006b). At the same time, the Greek cities such as Syracuse (200 000 inhabitants) flourished in Southern Italy during the 3 rd CE before declining with the Roman conquest. In Greece, the situation seems to get better in the 1 st c. with the Roman peace and some growth in population is discernable during the early Roman Empire.

The economic development of the Greek world during the Roman era probably peaked around 200 CE (Bowman, 2011a;Harper, 2016). After 200 CE, the level of economic development of the Mediterranean area started to decline importantly, although this was probably less important and delayed until the 4 th c. in Egypt (Bowman, 2011b;[START_REF] Ward-Perkins | The fall of Rome : And the end of civilization[END_REF].

Economic indicators are sparse for the Byzantium world. There is a consensus that affluence decreased from 400 to 800 CE (Milanovic, 2013;van Leeuwen et al., 2012). While the economic decline of Western Europe is well known, less known is the parallel decline in the East. "The 'Dark Ages' of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries in Byzantium may have been even darker than the corresponding and slightly earlier period in the West. Urban life and an urban-based economy seem to have disappeared almost entirely in the East, with the single exception of Constantinople." (Beaton, 2012, p. 15) It used to be taken for granted that while literacy severely decreased in the West, it continued to flourish uninterrupted in the East. However, "the probability has recently had to be considered that literacy and book production were scarcely more widespread in Byzantium than they were during the Western Middle Age" (Beaton, 2012, p. 16).

The economic renaissance of the 11 th and 12 th century significantly increased population (McEvedy et al., 1978), urbanization (Bosker et al., 2013) and GDP per capita (Milanovic, 2006). However, this renaissance remains limited (Milanovic, 2006;van Leeuwen et al., 2012). Even in the 11 th and 12 th Byzantium was probably already behind Western Europe in terms of economic development (Milanovic, 2006;van Leeuwen et al., 2012) For instance, Foldvari et al. (Bolt & Van Zanden, 2014) put forward an estimation of $600 in 1200 compared to $750 in England and $1200 in Italy.

After 1200, growth remained limited and it is unclear whether living standards ever increased before the industrialization of Greece in the late 19 th century. For instance, urbanization in continental Greece remained around of 5% during the period 1200 -1800 (Bosker et al., 2013), while it went from 5% to 11% in Western Europe and over 20% in England, Italy and The Netherlands. In the same way, estimates of GDP per capita in 1800 point toward a relative stagnation over the period 1200-1800.

The only exception is Crete which, from 1205 to 1667, was part of the Venitian Republic. After a period of rebellions, Crete enjoyed several centuries of economic growth and cultural development. There are no quantitative indicators for economic development in Crete for this period so Crete cannot be compared to Classical Greece and Western Europe. However, given the high level of economic development of Venice during this period (which reached $1500 in GDP per capita), it is probable that Crete had a higher level of economic development than the rest of Greece which remained a part of the Byzantine Empire.

CATEGORICAL METHOD (ABSENCE/PRESENCE OF HRL STORIES)

Table 3 presents the predictions that can be derived from the economic literature about the distribution of love stories in the Greek literature.

Archaic Greece

Love is obviously present in archaic literary works, through the separation of Hector and Andromache and the reunion of Ulysses and Penelope for instance. However, these romantic elements remain marginal in the economy of the plots. The same is also true of the stories of Theseus, Perseus or Herakles found in the Greek mythologies. As theoreticians of world literature and folklore have noted, the archaic Greek stories display plots such as 'Overcoming the Monster' [START_REF] Booker | The seven basic plots : Why we tell stories[END_REF] that are typical of folk literature: Zeus and the Titans, Ulysses and the Cyclops, Apollo and the Python, Oedipus and the Sphinx. As Booker notes, love is present in these stories, but only as a reward for overcoming the monster:

'The hero's immediate reward for slaying the monster may not always be the winning of a 'Princess' and succession to a kingdom: but in some form or another these are rarely very far away.' [START_REF] Booker | The seven basic plots : Why we tell stories[END_REF] Thus, love is marginal in archaic literature.

Before moving on, it is worth noting that one reason why this conclusion seems surprising is that our modern perception of archaic epics is influenced by later Classical, Hellenistic and Roman reworking of archaic epics. In his work on the reworking of Achilles story, Marco Fantuzzi (2012) clearly shows that love is almost absent in the Iliad, and that we tend to attribute to Homer a higher level of interest for love than he actually had because of later reworkings:

An erotic interpretation of the Iliad-however philologically inappropriate it might be-can be explained in historical terms as the effect of a perspective that merged the actual text of the Homeric poem with its eroticized reinterpretations. In fact, as I will show in the following pages, post-Homeric literary reworkings of the life of Achilles often fictionalized from scratch, or drew from non-Iliadic traditions, episodes of an erotic life of Achilles for which very scanty information, if any, was provided by Homeric epic. (Fantuzzi, 2012, p. 3) The lack of romantic elements is not specific to the Iliad. The Cypria and the Little Iliad, two other epics that dealt with the landing of Achilles on Scyros, do not seem to have given more importance to love. In particular, they do not seem to told a romantic story between Achilles and Deidameia, or Achilles and Polyxena.

Interestingly, it is possible that the love stories of Achilles (with Deidemia, with Briseis, with Panthesileia) were already in circulation at the time of Homer and the epics poets. If this was the case, this means that they voluntarily choose not to use these romantic plots:

We cannot know whether the poets of the oral tradition underlying the Iliad were aware of these erotic exploits of Achilles. They may have been entirely unaware of a series of erotic Achilles-myths that might have emerged only after the text of the Iliad was fixed, or they might have left these details untold, as they fell outside the poetics of the martial epos. (...)

Did Homer himself know only these details about Achilles' time on the island, or did he know of the whole version of Achilles' cross-dressing at Scyros and his love for Deidameia, but passed over this story, opting rather to relate the more warlike account of the conquest? Either option is equally plausible, but I have to admit that I favour the latter hypothesis, as I surmise that sexual life, or the experience of love, would perhaps have represented something far too human and commonplace, to be integrated into the Iliadic poetics of the 'absolute past', and besides-from the viewpoint of the 'absolute past'-something not relevant enough to the specific values and concern prevailing in the Iliad (war, and war-won glory). (Fantuzzi, 2012, p. 3) Love is more important in the Odyssey, with the long-awaited reunion of Ulysses and Penelope. However, as Konstan notes, the Odyssey cannot be considered love stories:

The Odyssey is a story of separation and reunion, to be sure, but the narrative is not constructed primarily around the motive of erotic passion. Odysseus seeks to recover his household, or oikos, of which is wife is part.… After their night together, in which Odysseus recounts to Penelope the tale of his adventures, the hero is reminded of his responsibilities to his father and of the threat posed by the family of the slain suitors, and the poem ends with an image of Odysseus among his male kin and retainers, defending his ancestral property against his enemies. (Konstan, 2014a, p. 192) As many literary theorists have noted, the Odyssey is first and foremost the story of a "quest," rather than a "reunion" [START_REF] Booker | The seven basic plots : Why we tell stories[END_REF].

Other cues suggest that the importance of love in the story is limited. Moses Finley noticed in his classic book The World of Odysseus, love and attachment between spouses are seldom mentioned. For instance, when it comes to evoking Odysseus's sad longing for his home, Penelope is rarely mentioned:

More often than not Penelope was omitted from the image of home, for the standard formula was the one used by Nausicaa: "Then there is hope that you will see your friends, and come to your home good to dwell in, and to your native land." (Finley, 1965) Love also appears to be much less important than the attachment between father and son, or between male friends: Neither in the relationship between Odysseus and Penelope nor in any other relationship between man and mate in the Homeric poems was there the depth and intensity, the quality of feeling-on the part of the male-that marked the attachment between father and son on the one hand, and between male and male companion on the other. The poems are rich in such images as this: "as a father greets his dear son who has come from a distant land in the tenth year" (16.17-18); but there are no similes drawn from a husband's joy in his wife. (Finley, 1965) Odysseus's short relationships with Calypso and Circe also do not involve love: "Though Odysseus submits to sexual relations with Calypso and Circe, there is no indication that he is moved by eros and he thus is considered to remain faithful to his spouse" (Konstan, 2014a, p. 192). Finally, in comparison to later stories such as the Greek novels of the Roman Empire, the relationships between male and female characters are very unequal. In the Odyssey for instance, Ulysses is the one who performs all the actions, while Penelope is mostly passive. In the Greek epics, "asymmetry, inequality and domination of one party by the other are universal in male-female relationships," and "reciprocal fidelity is not an epic ideal" (Naerebout, 1987a).

The limited importance of love in the economy of The Odyssey is also apparent quantitatively.

As we have seen, one important feature of a romantic story is the reciprocity of the feelings between the two characters, which is often reflected in the relative proportion of occurrences of the names of the male and female characters. With a ratio of 5.96, it is clear that "Ulysses" is much more present than "Penelope" (see Figure 2). In line with Finley's qualitative assessment, Penelope is also less important than Telemachus (2.6) and less important even than her own suitors (2.6). It is worth noting that this cannot be due to literary constraints specific to epic works. As an example, in the Argonautica, a Hellenistic epic, Jason and Medea have equal importance in the plot (despite the fact that Medea is absent at the beginning of the story). This is reflected in a quantitative assessment of the ratio of their occurrences (1.57). To conclude, this quantitative comparison demonstrates further that the love relationship between Ulysses and Penelope, although it was surely real in the eyes of Greek audiences, did not play the same role as the relationship between Tristan and Iseult or Daphnis and Chloé.

Classical Greece

During the 5 th c., romantic love seems to have become a more important motivation, notably in theater. At first, the role of romantic love was limited in Greek theater (Konstan, 2014a;Rudd, 1981;Walcot, 1987). In Aristophanes' Frogs, the character Aeshylus (525 -455 BCE) boasts that 'No one known any woman in love that I have ever created' (1044). To take but one example, it is striking that in the double suicide of Hemon and Antigone in Antigone, a motif that will re-appear in many love stories, nowhere is there a clear evidence that they are in love or even that Antigone loved Hemon or Hemon Antigone (Gibert, 1999;Walcot, 1987).

It is possible that the first love stories appeared in the late 5 th c. According to one ancient source, one of Aristophanes's last plays, Kolakos anticipated all the elements of New Comedy, including a rape and a recognition scene (Handley, 1985;Walcot, 1987).

In the domain of tragedy, Sophocles' lost tragedy Oenomaus (414 BCE) may have portrayed a love story, with mutual love and a happy ending (Gibert, 1999;Walcot, 1987). However, loves becomes really important with Euripides' tragedies such as Medea, Hippolytus and Stheneboea.

The novelty of such term 'erotic tragedies' (Daniel- Müller, 2008) is apparent in the fact that these plays were not very popular at first: Medea was only ranked third in the Panathenaic Games of 431 BC and Euripides had to rewrote Hippolytus.

The best example of a love story in 5 th c. tragedy is probably Euripides' Helen in which the real Helen of Troy has fled to Egypt during the War of Troy and is finally reunited with Menelaus, her true husband whom she loves. Just like in later Greek novels, it is the story of a longseparated couple (Helen and Menelaus) that is struggling to be reunited. As Segal (1971) notes, the tragedy displays all the features of a romantic novel:

'In addition to its setting in the Egyptian never-never land, the play also includes longseparated lovers, the loss and recovery of identity, the supernatural knowledge of a magician-like princess, and (like Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing or Cymbeline) a calumniated heroine whose virtue will carry her and her beloved through the perils of delusion and restore them to their own kingdom to live happily every after.' (Segal, 1971) The recognition scene between Menelaus and Helen, and their mutual joy of reunion clearly attests of the romantic nature of the play (Dirat, 1976).

In the prose domain, the first romantic story also appears during the 4 th c. with the short romance of Abradatas and Pantheia included in Xenophon's Cyropaedia (Book VI, 370 BCE) [START_REF] Jouanno | Un roman exemplaire : L'histoire d'Abradate et de Panthée au fil des siècles[END_REF]Reichel, 2010). Although it never circulated independently of the Cyropaedia, it has long been considered as a novella, i.e. 'short, self-contained prose narrative within the framework of a larger work' (Reichel, 2010, p. 432). Pantheia, wife of Abradatas of Susa, is captured by Cyrus. She resists the advances of the officer who is guarding her and appeals successfully to Cyrus for protection. Eventually, she is reunited with her husband. She arms him and encourages him as he goes into battle. And when he is killed, she commits suicide. This story 'contains several elements of the story-pattern of the Hellenistic love romance in its standardized form' (Reichjel, 2010) and corresponds to Konstan's definition of a symmetric love story in the sense that 1) both characters are considered are morally remarkable, faithful, courageous and patient and 2) Pantheia is equally important, or even more important than her husband in the plot [START_REF] Jouanno | Un roman exemplaire : L'histoire d'Abradate et de Panthée au fil des siècles[END_REF]Reichel, 2010). She takes many initiatives and leads the action of the couple. Several passages also demonstrate that she regard herself as the equal of Abradatas [START_REF] Jouanno | Un roman exemplaire : L'histoire d'Abradate et de Panthée au fil des siècles[END_REF].

Hellenistic world

Compared to the Ancient Comedy, the New Comedy (320 -260 BCE) granted more importance to love (Konstan, 2014a;Rudd, 1981;Walcot, 1987). Most of the main features of romantic stories can be found in the plays of the period: love at first sight, idealization of the beloved, emotional preoccupation, and the desire for long-term attachment (Brown, 1993).

In the domain of epics, Apollonius of Rhodes famously portrays the fierce love of Medea for Jason The Argonautica (3 rd c. BCE). With her assistance, Jason succeeds in overcoming the magical obstacles placed in his way by Aaetes, father of Medea and king of Colchis, and acquires the Golden Fleece, the object of the Argo's mission. Romantic love is described in details: Medea becomes agitated and restless, she pictures constantly Jason in her mind, she dreams Jason is taking her away, etc. (Rudd, 1981). Furthermore, unlike other female characters in the archaic epics, Medea is not passive and she takes as much initiative as Jason (just like the heroines of the later Greek novels). Finally, Apollonius clearly depicts a reciprocal relationship in Book III with Jason falling in love with Medea and considering an eternal and faithful union (although less importance is granted to Jason's feelings than to Medea's feelings, and their relationship is far from symmetric) [START_REF] Mary | Apollonius' Argonautica[END_REF]. For all these reasons, The Argonautica has been seen as a major breakthrough in Greek literature, in which for the first time is an epic 'love is the principal theme' (Zanker, 1979). Historians have talked about Jason as a 'love-hero' [START_REF] Beye | Jason as love-hero in Apollonios' Argonautica. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies[END_REF]; see also [START_REF] Cusset | Le Jason d'Apollonios de Rhodes : Un personnage romanesque?[END_REF] in opposition to the traditional warrior hero like Heracles, who is in fact marginalized in the plot. They also have qualified the story of Jason and Medea as a 'romance' [START_REF] Phinney | Narrative unity in the Argonautica, the Medea-Jason romance[END_REF].

Romantic narratives are more difficult to study after 250 BCE as almost all literary works have been lost. However, there is little doubt that there existed romantic stories. The love story of Acontius and Cydippe, for instance, can be found in one of the fragments of the poetry of Callimachus, another great poet of Alexandria (Clauss & Cuypers, 2010). Massimo Fusillo notes the close parallel between this story and later Greek romances: 'The couple of exceptionally beautiful adolescents who fall in love at first sight swear fidelity to one another and consummate their bond after various obstacles." (Konstan, 2014a).

Another example is the Erotica Pathemata (Of the Sorrows of Love) a collection of thirty-six summaries of love stories, taken from histories, historicized fictions as well as poetry. The twists and turns of the love stories (accidents, pirates, etc.) have clear parallels in later Greek novels [START_REF] Billault | La littérature dans les Erotica Pathémata de Parthénios[END_REF]. This collection, dated from the 1 st BCE, cites many Hellenistic poets of the 3 rd and 2 nd c. BCE (such as Hermesianax for instance) and suggests the existence of a romantic production during this period. In fact, the earliest romantic novels such as Chariton's Callirhoe and more probably Metiochus and Parthenope might be dated from the very end of the Hellenistic period [START_REF] Hägg | The virgin and her lover : Fragments of an ancient Greek novel and a Persian epic poem[END_REF][START_REF] Schmeling | The novel in the ancient world[END_REF], although the consensus is that they rather appear during the Roman period [START_REF] Whitmarsh | Prose Fiction[END_REF]. Fragment of other novels such as Chione, Sesonchosis or Ninus and Semiramis also suggest that the prevalence of romantic

Early Roman Greek world

During the early Roman Empire, love stories continue to be written and many of them have been preserved: (1 st c. CE, lost), Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon (2 nd c. CE), Longus' Daphnis and Chloe (2 nd c. CE), Xenophon of Ephesus' Ephesian Tale (2 nd c. CE), and Heliodorus of Emesa's Aethiopica (3 rd c. CE). These novels are all highly romantic and exhibit all the characteristic of romantic love: 1) reciprocity and exclusivity, 2) attraction and idealization of the beloved (e.g., love at first sight, intrusive thinking about the love object), 3) attachment and desire for union, both physical and emotional, and 4) reordering of motivational hierarchies or life priorities (e.g., love suicide, lovesickness, broken heartedness) (Konstan, 2014a).

Late Roman Greek world

From the 3 rd c. on, the literary production is much lower is, paralleling the economic decline of the Roman Empire. Love stories appear to be rare. The few epics from this period like Quintus of Smyrna's Posthomerica or Nonnus' Dyonisacaa do not tell any HRL story (Frangoulis, 2014;McGill & Watts, 2018). The same observation can be made for the early Christian works written during this period. There are a few exceptions, however, such as Musaeus' epyllion Hero and Leander (late 5 th c.) and Coluthus' epyllion The Abduction of Helen (late 5 th c.) who both depict a reciprocal love story (Cadau, 2015;McGill & Watts, 2018;[START_REF] Whitmarsh | Dirty Love: The Genealogy of the Ancient Greek Novel[END_REF].

Another important exception might be the Greek novel Aethiopica, which is often dated from the 3rd or 4th c. (Chuvin, 2019). This suggests that HRL 'remained in the mainstream' (Whitmarsh, 2018, 170).

Byzantium: Early medieval period

During the early byzantine period, most fictions are religiously inspired. While most religious texts are historiographic (hagiographies, martyria, etc.) and cannot be considered as fictions, historians of early byzantine literature tend to consider that others are better understood as fictions. This is the case, for instance, of 'epic passions':

These were stories about the interrogation, ordeal and execution of holy men and women who, during the persecutions of Christians, declared their true faith and challenged the pagan authorities. All such stories describe similar minor characters (emperors and governors as judges, their retainers and soldiers, pious supporters of the martyrs, and so on), similar situations, tortures and miracles, and assume superficial freshness only by changing names. Paraphrasing Robert Graves, we may say that this variation of names and details kept the standardized tale "fresh and therefore true". Movie-goers and book-readers who are accustomed to the works of formulaic genre with their barely varying repetitions of plot and action will appreciate the comfortable familiarity and uniformity the Byzantines found in "epic passions". (Kazhdan,199,p. 84) In the same way, the story of Barlaam and Ioasaph (a story inspired by the life of Buddha) can be compared to the Greek novels of the late Roma period. Except that, unlike in these novels, love plays a marginal role:

In the Barlaam adventure per se is relegated to the background and the power of love reduced to a sordid attempt to seduce Ioasaph. Philosophy and ethics dominate the storytelling, and small pearls of parables are scattered about the text for the reader to contemplate in isolation from the story itself. Probably, we may characterize the work (of John Sabbaite?) as a Christian romance. (Kazhdan,199,p. 105) The Vita of Matrona is compositionally the opposite of the love romance: Matrona runs not to but from marriage; she begins her journey after marrying Dometianus and giving birth to a daughter called Theodote; she looks not for physical rapture but for asceticism and celestial love. But on the surface, her journey, her hide-and-seek game with Dometianus, is tantamount to the wanderings of lovers in an ancient romance. (Kazhdan,199,p. 158) Many other parallels with Greek novels can be made (scene of shipwreck, noble and beautiful heroes, magic, dreams) and even explicit references in the names of the characters. Despite these parallels though, love stories remain marginal. What matters is the martyr drama, the celebration of the virtues of the saints and the preservation of the characters' chastity?

Byzantium: Central medieval period

The Byzantium Medieval Renaissance follows a pattern similar to the Western European Literature (see below). In the West, during the earlier and poorer period (11 th c.), the only known fictions such as the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungelied and the Poema del Mio Cid contains no or little romantic plot. Similarly, Digenes Akrites tell the life of Basil, whose epithet Digenes Akritas ("Two Blood Border Lord" or "Twain-born Borderer") refers to his mixed Byzantine-Cappadocian Greek and Arab blood. The first part of the work tells the lives of Digenes' parents, how they met, and how Digenes' father, an Emir, converted to Christianity after kidnapping and marrying Digenes' mother. The remainder of the epic recount Digenes' acts of heroism on the Byzantine border. It is notable that the love story present is marginal. The girl is never named and remains totally passive. Digenes is the one who abducted her and fight the army sent by her father. The role of the female character is only 'to motivate heroic action by Digenes for her rescue and protection and to provide an erotic element in her scenes of dalliance with her husband' (Garland, 1990, p. 94).

By contrast, from the 12 th c. onward, love becomes a central element of literary plots as titles such as Rodanthe and Dosikles, Drosilla and Charikles and Hysmine and Hysminias reflect.

Here is how the English translator summarizes this last work:

'Hysmine and Hysminias tells how the hero Hysminias, meets and fall in love with the heroine, Hysmine, and the adventures they go through before they are able to achieve marriage.' (Jeffreys, 2012, p. 168) As Garland writes: 'In the Byzantine learned romances, marriage is the goal for which all characters aim and, though there are a number of attempts made upon their chastity, twelfth century romance keeps its heroes and heroines strictly virginal until the actual wedding ceremony which closes each work.' [START_REF] Garland | Be Amorous, But Be Chaste…'* : Sexual morality in Byzantine learned and vernacular romance[END_REF] Another evidence of the highly romantic characters of these works is their intertextuality with the ancient Greek novels [START_REF] Nilsson | 2 Romantic Love in Rhetorical Guise: The Byzantine Revival of the Twelfth Century[END_REF]. [START_REF] Garland | Be Amorous, But Be Chaste…'* : Sexual morality in Byzantine learned and vernacular romance[END_REF]. 'Be Amorous, But Be Chaste…'* : Sexual morality in Byzantine learned and vernacular romance. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 14, 62-120.

Byzantium: Late Medieval period

In the late Medieval period, love romances continue to be produced. However, many are now inspired by European story lines such as Phlorios and Platzia-Phlora (from the French Floire and Blanchefleur), Imperios and Margarona (from the French Pierre de Provence et la Belle Maguelonne), Apollonios of Tyre (from an Italian version) and Theseid (from Boccaccio's Teseida) (Beaton, 2012;Goldwyn & Nilsson, 2018)

Early Modern Greece

Similar romantic plots can be found in later works [START_REF] Embiricos | Τσ᾿ εὐγενειᾶς τὰ δῶρα: passion, vertu et noblesse dans Erotocritos[END_REF]Lassithiotakis, 2009;[START_REF] Mirambel | Crete prevent us from making any prediction regarding the direction of the evolution from Paris and Vienne to Erotokritos[END_REF]. In Erotokritos (17 th c.) for instance, the poet relates the adventure and sufferings of two young lovers, Erotokritos and Aretousa. It is also the case for Erofili (1547) by Georgios Chortatzis, a romantic tragedy inspired by an Italian Renaissance tragedy.

Archaic period and Classical period

The comparison between the Archaic and the Classical period is straightforward as romantic love is either absent or rather limited in the Archaic period (see above Categorical method). Naerebout, for instance, notes that 'asymmetry, inequality and domination of one party by the other are universal in male-female relationships' (Naerebout, 1987bcited in Konstan, 2014). By contrast, romantic plots start to flourish during the Classical period in tragedies, comedies and prose works (Konstan, 2014). This is consistent with Hypothesis 2. Konstan, D. (2014). Sexual symmetry : Love in the ancient novel and related genres. Princeton University Press.

Classical period and Hellenistic period

As we have seen when discussing Hypothesis 1, there is also little doubt that Hellenistic productions -Menander's comedies, Apollonius' epics, the many stories of Erotica Pathemata, and the first novels -are more romantic than the Classical productions (Konstan, 2014). This is again consistent with Hypothesis 2. Konstan, D. (2014). Sexual symmetry : Love in the ancient novel and related genres. Princeton University Press.

Hellenistic period and Early Roman period

By contrast, the comparison between the Hellenistic period and the Early modern period is more problematic. The decrease in economic development from 300 BC to 0 CE would suggests a decrease in romantic love (Morris, 2013b;Ober, 2015). We rather observe the opposite pattern: although romantic love plays a central role in Menander's comedies, Apollonius' epics and the many stories of Erotica Pathemata, the level of romanticism is clearly higher in the Greek novels of the Roman era: the feelings of the women are muted in the comedies, the relationships is often unequal, non-reciprocated and unhappy (Konstan, 2014). Konstan, D. (2014). Sexual symmetry : Love in the ancient novel and related genres. Princeton University Press.

Early Roman period and Late Roman period

During the decline of the Roman Empire, Hero and Leander is the exception rather than the rule and most of the extant works are not HRL stories (i.e. Quintus of Smyrna's Posthomerica or Nonnus' Dyonisacaa) (Cadau, 2015;Frangoulis, 2014). Also, it is worth noting that the emerging Christian narrative literature (the Clementine literature, The Acts of Paul and Thecla) did not display any interest in romanticism.

Classical period and Early Roman period

In Sexual Symmetry, Konstan (2014) also compared the Greek novels with the work of the Classical era. Again, the decrease in economic development from 400 BC to 0 CE would suggests a decrease in romantic love (Morris, 2013b;Ober, 2015), and again this is not the case:

in the Greek novel, love is more central, more symmetric and better described than in the tragedies and comedies on the Classical period (Konstan, 2014a). Konstan, D. (2014). Sexual symmetry : Love in the ancient novel and related genres. Princeton University Press.

To the best of our knowledge, there is no comparison between Ancient Greece and Byzantium regarding romantic love, nor between Byzantium and Early Modern Greece.

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME GENRE

The continuity of the literary genres such as epic, comedy and tragedy throughout the Greek tradition allow for comparing the relative intensity of romantic love within the same genre.

Epic: Archaic period and Hellenistic period

During the Hellenistic period, Apollonius' Argonautica is modelled on the archaic epics of Homer. However, it departs from its model precisely on the importance of love. Romantic love is almost absent in the archaic epics, not only in the Iliad and in the Odyssey, but also in the now lost poems of the Epic cycle (Nostoi, Cypria, The Little Iliad, etc.), the Theban Cycle (Oedipodea, Thebaid, Epigoni, Alcmeonis) as well as other epics (Titanomachy, Heracleia, Megalai Ehoiai, etc) (Burgess, 2005). By contrast, love is central in the Argonautica. As Mary notes: 'Love, traditionally the foil of epic, becomes the mainspring of the Argonautica. In this poem, heroic deeds offer only comic relief from the seriousness of romantic love' [START_REF] Mary | Apollonius' Argonautica[END_REF]. This is a specifically Hellenistic innovation: "As far as we can tell, Apollonius was the first to treat of the love theme in epic to this extent' (Zanker, 1979).

Crucially for our study, Apollonius's literary project is deeply intertextual (Daniel- Müller, 2008;Fantuzzi, 2008;Knight, 1995). This is in fact one of the hallmarks of Alexandrian poets:

The specificity -and modernity -of the Hellenistic poets is to have replaced the ancient Muse as a source of inspiration by the literary model. This is probably the first time in Western literature that authors refer so insistently and clearly to earlier works. (Daniel-Müller, 2006, p. 41)

And yet, despite their attachment to Homer, Apollonius transformed the Homeric epics and changed the place of love which, 'from being secondary and peripheral as it was in the archaic epic, becomes the real driving force and, by the same token, the most important innovation of the poems of Theocritus and Apollonius'. (Daniel-Müller, 2008, p. 83) This is visible in many sections where Apollonius uses the same techniques as Homer's epics (structure, scene, etc.) but injects much more romantic love:

If the encounter between Jason and Medea is based on the model of that between Ulysses and Nausicaa, the novelty of Apollonius is that he has given a very important place in the narrative to love -especially to the expression of Medea's feelings -whereas this theme was secondary and largely treated in the manner implicit in Homer. (Daniel-Müller, 2008, p. 85) Many other examples can be given where love replaced war in the story line (Daniel- Müller, 2008;[START_REF] Mary | Apollonius' Argonautica[END_REF]Zanker, 1979). As a matter of fact, Apollonius' text suggests that he was well aware that his epic was breaking with the tradition and inaugurating a new kind of epic in which love occupied a central place (Zanker, 1979).

Epic: Archaic period and Late Roman period

Late Roman epics (Posthomerica by Quintus of Smyrna, Dionysiaca by Nonnus and The Abduction of Helen by Coluthus) should be more romantic than the archaic epics. This seems to be the case. In a systematic study of the Dionysiaca, Hélène Frangoulis has shown that this late epic reused all the narrative scheme of the birth and first manifestations of love found in the Greek novels: the intervention of Eros, love at first sight, obsession with the beloved object, hatred for the usual occupations and amorous complaints (Frangoulis, 2014). Similar parallels' between Greek novels and Coluthus' The Abduction of Helen can be made (Cadau, 2015). This clearly suggests an interest for romantic love.

Comedy: Classical Comedies and Hellenistic Comedies

In the domain of comedy, the evolution between Ancient Comedy (6 th and 5 th c.) and New Comedy (4 th and 3 rd c.) is striking. Love is totally absent in the oldest comedies, while it is central in the newest ones. As Booker notes 'During the century after the heyday of Aristophanes, Comedy went through a change so marked as to amount almost to a mutation. [START_REF] Booker | The seven basic plots : Why we tell stories[END_REF])

Tragedy: Classical tragedies and Hellenistic tragedies

It is difficult to know how the Greek tragedy evolved in the 4 th c. as literary data are much rarer after 400 BC. However, it is clear that by the end of the 5 th c., when the record stops, the genre of tragedy was starting to regard love as a serious topic and was moving toward the kind of 'romantic tragedies' or 'drama' that emerge in the early modern European period (Gibert, 1999). As we have already noted, the early tragedies (Aeschylus) are less romantic than the late (Euripides) tragedies (Konstan, 2014a;Rudd, 1981;Walcot, 1987) (Gibert, 1999;Walcot, 1987). The fragment of the lost tragedy Andromeda (412 BCE) by Euripides suggest that it was possibly a 'love romance', with love at first sight and a happy ending in marriage (Gibert, 1999;Walcot, 1987). The positive reception of the play as well as some of its most famous verses suggest that romantic love was becoming more positively regarded (e.g. 'to find a noble marriage is the greatest treasure' and 'all men who succumb to Eros when they chance upon noble lovers, to them there is no pleasure to which this is inferior' (Gibert, 1999;Walcot, 1987).

No tragedy from the 4 th c. playwriters has survived, and only a few fragments remain [START_REF] Kotlinska-Toma | Hellenistic Tragedy : Texts, Translations and a Critical Survey[END_REF][START_REF] Miles | Greek Drama in the Hellenistic World. A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama[END_REF]. The best-preserved Hellenistic play is Sositheus' Daphnis or Lityerses. What can be inferred from the fragments is a plot where love probably played an important role:

Daphnis, searching the world for the nymph he loved, found her as a slave at the court of the Phrygian king Lityerses, who required strangers to engage in a contest of reaping and killed them when he won; the play ended with Heracles decapitating Lityerses and returning the nymph to her lover. (Clauss & Cuypers, 2010) Although it is debated whether this play was a tragedy (the title also suggest a satyr-play), historians concur that the 'sentimental tragicomic plot seems indebted to Euripides' [START_REF] Sens | Hellenistic tragedy and Lycophron's Alexandra. A Companion to Hellenistic Literature[END_REF].

Tragedy: Classical tragedies and Early Medieval tragedies

The popularity of Greek tragedies declined during the late Roman period. From the 2nd c. on, theater started to be seen as morally problematic by both Christian and pagan philosophers.

Although tragedies continue to circulate and may have been played in the Roman Empire up to the 7th c., no new tragedy is known to have been produced in the Greek speaking area of the Roman Empire [START_REF] Symes | For instance[END_REF]. In the 11th and 12th, with the Byzantine Renaissance, the theater tradition experienced a rebirth. One text, in particular, Christos paschon ("Suffering Christ"), can be considered as a tragedy, in the classical genre for as one of its earliest manuscripts asserts, it is the story of Christ's Passion "according to Euripides" [START_REF] Symes | For instance[END_REF].

Although it is unknown if it led to actual theatrical representations, it was probably quite popular given the number of surviving manuscripts. In any case, and unlike Euripides' tragedies, there is no romantic plot in this Byzantine tragedy.

Tragedy: Classical Tragedies and Early Modern tragedies

Erofili (1547) by Georgios Chortatzis is inspired by an Italian Renaissance tragedy, Orbecche (1541) by Giovanni Battista Giraldi. The plot is identical, as is the distribution of roles, and some passages are entirely imitated from the original [START_REF] Embiricos | Τσ᾿ εὐγενειᾶς τὰ δῶρα: passion, vertu et noblesse dans Erotocritos[END_REF]. Although love plays an important in Orbecche, its importance is even higher in Erofili for which literary historian [START_REF] Embiricos | Τσ᾿ εὐγενειᾶς τὰ δῶρα: passion, vertu et noblesse dans Erotocritos[END_REF] talks about 'total love', which clearly suggests that romantic love plays a more important role in this Early Modern Greek tragedy than in the Classical tragedies.

Story lines from Archaic Greece to Classical Greece

Story lines from Archaic Greece to the Hellenistic Greek World

During the Hellenistic period, Apollonius of Rhode reused the archaic story of Jason and the Argonauts. While Apollonius followed the archaic myth, his version is much more romantic for love was quite marginal in the archaic version. In his study of Apollonius' innovation, Zanker notes that:

'there is nothing to hint of its existence in the versions of the Argonaut legend alluded to in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The same may be said for Hesiod. Likewise, too, although Apollonius was indebted to the Corinthian poet Eumelus (to be dated to the second half of the eighth century B. C.), his debt, to judge from the scholiasts, was limited to details of, for example, how armed men sprang up when the dragon's teeth were sow). There is nothing in the fragments of Eumelus to suggest that he was at all concerned to highlight the love of Medea and Jason; his task, it appears, was rather to link the story of the Argonauts mentioned in the Homeric poems with the early history of Corinth.' (Zanker, 1979) Zanker, G. (1979). The Love Theme in Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica. Wiener Studien, 92, 52-75.

Story lines from Archaic Greece to the Late Roman period

In the late Roman Empire, the three epics (Posthomerica by Quintus of Smyrna, Dionysiaca by Nonnus and The Abduction of Helen by Coluthus) are based on the same story lines as the archaic epics (the explicit goal of Posthomerica is in fact to provide an end to the Iliad, and replace works that had been lost such as Coming of Memnon of Arctinus of Miletus). As can be seen with Dionysiaca by Nonnus (Frangoulis, 2014) and The Abduction of Helen by Coluthus (Cadau, 2015), there are many literary parallels between the Late epics and the Greek novels, suggesting that the late Roman epics build on the romantic Greek novels, and are thus more romantic than the original Archaic story lines.

Story lines from Archaic Greece to Late Medieval Byzantium

In Byzantium, rewritings concern two romances loosely inspired by the Archaic Greek epics: the Tale of Achilles (c. 1350) and the Tale of Troy (c. 1500). The higher level of affluence of Byzantium over Archaic Greek predicts a higher importance of love in these rewriting. This is indeed the case: in both romances, the main plot is a love story (Beaton, 2012;[START_REF] Garland | Be Amorous, But Be Chaste…'* : Sexual morality in Byzantine learned and vernacular romance[END_REF]Goldwyn & Nilsson, 2018). Here is for instance a summary of the Tale of Achilles:

'Achilles, son of the king of Greece, at an early age shows great intellectual and physical strength, but in spite of his apparent sex appeal he despises love and its powers. He does, however, fall in love and is, by Eros's intervention, convinced to pursue his passion, abducts the girl, and marries her. But the end of the love story is not a happy one: after six years of blissful marriage, the girl falls ill and dies, leaving Achilles alone with his grief.' (Goldwyn & Nilsson, 2018) It is interesting to note that, in line with economic indicators, the Tale of Achilles is less romantic than Benoit de Sainte Maure's adaptation [START_REF] Lassithiotakis | Achille et Digénis: réflexions sur la fonction de quelques épisodes et motifs acritiques dans l'Achilléide[END_REF].

In Byzantium, both John Tzetzes in his Chiliades and John Zonaras in his Extracts of History rewrote the romance of Panthea and Abradate by Xenophon (4 th c. BCE). In both cases, the Byzantium authors decreased the role of the female character. As Jouano notes, this is consistent with the fact that the Greek medieval novels are much less symmetric than the ancient Greek novels [START_REF] Jouanno | Un roman exemplaire : L'histoire d'Abradate et de Panthée au fil des siècles[END_REF], in line with the lower level of economic development in Byzantium relative to Hellenistic Greece.

Story lines from the Hellenistic period to the Late Roman period

The only case of rewriting is that of the Argonautica Orphica by an anonymous author of the 4 th c. which tells the story of Jason and the Argonauts, just like Apollonius of Rhode in the Argonautica. In a study of the two works, Fabre notes that romantic love is much less present in the Argonautica Orphica than in the Argonautica:

'Where Apollonius devotes 1,000 verses to recounting the passion of his heroes, Orpheus is content with a dozen verses.' (Fabre, 1972, p. 281) 'As much as the poem of Apollonius is ordered in a scholarly manner (for example in the Catalogue of the Argonauts) and gives an important place (…) to the psychological elements, the love of Jason and Medea, the struggle of virtue and passion in the heart of Medea, as much Orpheus delivers a rather dry poem, centered on a kind of Orphic symbolism and a fantastic travel story. ' (Fabre, 1972, p. 281) This is consistent with the relative level of economic development in 3 rd c. BCE Alexandria ($1000) to 4 th c. Eastern Mediterranean area ($500-600).

Story lines from Early Roman period to Byzantium

One case of rewriting is the Alexander Romance (3 rd c. CE). Since the original version is not romantic, it cannot become less romantic (hence the prediction that the level of romanticism should be stable, although economic development in Byzantium was lower that in the Early Roman period). In any case, as in Western Europe, the Alexander Romance (which is not a romantic story in its original version) did not evolve into a romantic work (Beaton, 2012;Zuwiyya, 2011). On the one hand, it retained the structure based on the four love-affairs introduced by Benoît. Dozens of details were drawn from some evidently chivalric source: the battles were jousts in which heroes unseated their opponents (for example, . Vriseida encouraged Diomidis, her subsequent suitor, by giving him a sleeve as a token of interest (II. 6521-2). Medea boldly invited Jason to spend a night of passion in her room (II. 412, 523-4). (Yiavis, 2016) On the other hand, the Byzantine version was clearly less romantic than the French original:

All love was proclaimed to be flawed and women fickle. Love hardly inspired the heroes to deeds of valour… it consistently caused devastation.… The romance rarely passed on a chance to drive home that when a young woman trusts a man, there ensues sexual permissiveness which is condemnable. (Yiavis, 2016) Yiavis concludes: "Somehow this distance which the War of Troy placed between itself and the courtly ideals of the Roman de Troie brought it closer to Dares whose muscular narrative had had no space for love." (Yiavis, 2016) In the same way, a close comparison of Imperios and Margarona and its source, the French Pierre de Provence et la Belle Maguelonne, shows that the Byzantine version downplays the romantic aspect of the original story. Romina Luzi writes: 'In the French romance, the motif of amour de lonh with its nostalgic and evocative echoes and descriptions, despite its brief and conventional character, succeeds in expressing the crescendo of passion of the young couple with the exchange of three rings under the benevolent and maternal supervision of the Maguelonne's nurse.' [START_REF] Luzi | The Acculturation of the French Romance: Pierre de Provence et la belle Maguelonne in the Byzantine Imperios and Margarona. Reading the Late Byzantine Romance: A Handbook Yiavis, K[END_REF] By contrast, in the Greek romance, the male hero is not so interest in her lover: 'In the Greek romance, Imperios does not leave his kingdom in order to find Margarona, but because he has had an argument with his parents, who will not give him permission to risk his life in a joust. The hero is burning with a desire to face the brave knight who has come from afar, so he prepares himself for the duel 'without the consent and the will of his father and of his mother'. [START_REF] Luzi | The Acculturation of the French Romance: Pierre de Provence et la belle Maguelonne in the Byzantine Imperios and Margarona. Reading the Late Byzantine Romance: A Handbook Yiavis, K[END_REF] The contrast is striking in the episode of the three rings. In the French romance, Pierre receives three rings from his mother as a present for his departure, which he will offer progressively as he approaches his goal, namely seducing Maguelonne. As Romina Luzi explain:

"The concluding stage in the giving of the three rings, each of which is more sumptuous and precious, reflects the heightening of the emotion of love and the progressive rapprochement of the young couple." [START_REF] Luzi | The Acculturation of the French Romance: Pierre de Provence et la belle Maguelonne in the Byzantine Imperios and Margarona. Reading the Late Byzantine Romance: A Handbook Yiavis, K[END_REF] Yet such an episode is completely ignored in the byzantine version:

Story lines from Western Europe (Early Modern period) to Early Modern Greece

Erofili (1547) by Georgios Chortatzis is inspired by an Italian Renaissance tragedy, Orbecche (1541) by Giovanni Battista Giraldi. The plot is identical, as is the distribution of roles, and some passages are entirely imitated from the original [START_REF] Embiricos | Τσ᾿ εὐγενειᾶς τὰ δῶρα: passion, vertu et noblesse dans Erotocritos[END_REF]. Although love plays an important in Orbecche, its importance is even higher in Erofili for which literary historian [START_REF] Embiricos | Τσ᾿ εὐγενειᾶς τὰ δῶρα: passion, vertu et noblesse dans Erotocritos[END_REF] talks about 'total love', which clearly suggests that romantic love plays a more important role in this Early Modern Greek tragedy than in the Classical tragedies. However, the lack of Economic indicators for Early Modern Crete prevent us from making any prediction regarding the direction of the evolution from Orbecche to Erofili. The narrative fictional literature of India goes back to the beginning of the Vedic period (1500 BCE) with the Rṛgveda, and the exegetic literature (Brāhmaṇas). However, because this literature is mostly religious in its intention, it is not included in the sample (see Introduction). Thus, like in the Greek world, the most ancient fictions consists in very long epics -the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata -written in Sanskrit from around 700 BC for the oldest parts to 200 CE for the most recent parts [START_REF] Brockington | The Sanskrit Epics[END_REF][START_REF] Pollock | Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia[END_REF][START_REF] Pollock | The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture and Power in Premodern India[END_REF]. In South India, Tamil literature developed independently, from 300 BCE on with the Sangam

CATEGORICAL METHOD (ABSENCE/PRESENCE OF HRL STORIES)

There is no standard periodization of Indian history. Here, we used one of the most consensual, used in Wikipedia.

Pre-classical period (before 500 BCE)

The great epic fictions, the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, were probably written during the Classical period (500 BCE -650 CE). Yet, it is believed that the core portion of the texts range from the 7 th to 4 th c. BCE [START_REF] Brockington | The Sanskrit Epics[END_REF] and thus allow us to have an idea of the kind of fictions enjoyed by the Indian elites before the classical period.

Hypothesis 1 predicts that love stories are less likely to be present in the core stories of these two texts. Of course, love is present in the Mahābhārata and in the Rāmāyaṇa just it is in the archaic Greek epics. For instance, Rāma's pain after Sītā has been abducted by Rāvaṇa is considered by Indian aesthetics the very archetype of love-in-separation (vipralambhaśṛṅgāra). The 2nd chapter of the epic shows the mythical poet, Vālmīki, inventing the epic meter in order to depict the suffering of a bird whose love-partner has been killed by a hunter -the bird being a forerunner of Rāma deprived of his beloved Sītā. In the same way, the love between the king Śantanu for Satyavatī plays a central role at the very beginning of the Mahābhārata. Also, love is a fundamental component of Indian Kingship. The king must be a paramour, whose happy sexuality is linked with the prosperity of his kingdom 1 . However, just as in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the role of love in the narratives remains marginal compared to kingship and warship. The main concerns of the great archaic epics 'revolve around kingship, succession and just rule' and are 'essentially a male world' [START_REF] Orsini | Love in South Asia : A cultural history[END_REF]. 'These epics contain not only tales of valor but also stories of love such as those between Rama and Sita, Sita and Ravana, Nala and Damayanti, Satyavan and Savitri, the Pandava Brothers and Panchali. However, these epics celebrate rather the exploits of heroes than the amorous adventures of the heroes.' (Thundy,198,46) For instance, the main narrative line of the Mahābhārata tells the dynastic struggle for the throne of two collateral branches of the reigning family: the Kaurava and the Pandava [START_REF] Brockington | The Sanskrit Epics[END_REF][START_REF] Van Buitenen | The Mahabharata, volume 1 : Book 1: the book of the beginning[END_REF]. This struggle culminates in the great battle of Kurukshetra, in which several important figures are torn apart by the contradictory commandments of kinship and loyalty and in which the Pandavas are ultimately victorious. Another point is that, the love stories between spouses (Rāma and Sītā, Śantanu and Satyavatī Nala and Damayantī) are less stories of conjugal love than odes to feminine fidelity (often called purity) and total devotion of the wife to her husband2 .

Finally, just as for the Iliad and the Odyssey, the short romantic anecdotes will be reworked and expanded only in later work: Some love poetry is found in these epics, but more often these epics, like The Iliad and The Odyssey, provide subject matter for subsequent poems and plays written on heroes and heroines in love. (Thundy,198,46) Brockington, J. L. (1998). The Sanskrit Epics (Vol. 12). Brill. Orsini, F. (2006)

Classical period (500 BCE -700 CE)

The time between the Maurya Empire in the 3 rd c. BCE and the end of the Gupta Empire in the 7 th c. CE is referred to as the "Classical" period of India. Our hypothesis predicts that narrative fictions should grant more importance to love in the subsequent and more urbanized periods. This is indeed the case. With the transition to urban and courtly society 'love became the principal example and the focus of much greater emotional and aesthetic sophistication' [START_REF] Orsini | Love in South Asia : A cultural history[END_REF]. For instance, Kadambari by Bāṇabhaṭṭa (7 th c.), arguably one of the world's first novels, is centered around the romantic attachment (and eventual union) between the hero Candrapīḍa and the heroine Kadambari [START_REF] Rajappa | Kadambari[END_REF]. In the same way, the story of Aja et Indumatī in chapters 6 to 8 of Kālidāsa's Raghuvaṃśa tells a very romantic story.

Another example of love story is the famous love story of Nala and Damayanti, in the third book of the Mahābhārata, 'perhaps the most popular of all the episodes of the text' (J. A. B. van Buitenen, 2011, p. xxvi). This story does not belong to the core text of the Mahābhārata and was probably included in the Mahābhārata quite late, that is during the Classical period (J. A. van Buitenen, 2014, p. 183). This is a symmetric love fiction: the two lovers are both young, well born, beautiful and virtuous, and they fall in love with each other at first sights [START_REF] Parkhill | From Trifle to Story : A Study of" Nala and Damayantī[END_REF]. They are separated by some divine intervention, and a large part of the text describe their struggle to be reunited. Finally, like the Greek novels, the female character is more active and more important than the male character: 'In spite of its traditional name it is much more the story of Damayanti than of Nala. The entire concatenation of events is treated strictly from a woman's point of view.' (J. A. van Buitenen, 2014, p. 184).

Another famous example is the Sanskrit "palace dramas" written by Kalidasa (4 th -5 th c.) and Harsha (7 th c.) which also revolve around very romantic love story. Because these works are often unknown outside of the field of Indian literature, it is worth quoting verbatim a summary of their basic narrative scheme:

'First, the newly promised princess enters the household of the king in disguise, and is attached to the queen's retinue in the antahpura. The king and the maiden soon see one another (or, in Malavikagnimitra, a picture of the beloved), and become immediately infatuated. The lovers confess their affections to friends (…) and the courtship begins.

Through their companions, chiefly the vidushaka, they meet in the garden, where they discover that their affections are reciprocated. It is not long, however, before the interests of the higher queens interrupt the budding romance, as they discover these various trysts. The king must then placate their anger and jealousy while somehow continuing to pursue his infatuation. Unappeased, the chief queen in all three plays restrains the maiden from visiting the king. But at the end of each play, the girl's identity is disclosed to the royal couple by servants from her natal house, who arrive with messengers bearing news of political good fortune for king Udayana. Vasavadatta, learning that the heroine is not merely a princess of note, ostensibly already promised to her lord, but also a junior cousin (or 'sister') through her own maternal line, now relinquishes her jealousy and gives her benevolent assent to the king's infatuation. The young maiden is married to the king and enters the house as a junior queen. King Udayana is elated, exclaiming that he has attained political fortune, acquired a maiden without disturbing his chief queen Vasavadatta and reunited longlost cousin-sisters!' (Ali, 2004, p. 54) It should be noted that although royal characters are predominant in these dramas, commoners can also be the protagonists of love stories. This is the case for instance, in Malatimadhava (8 th c.):

'The play is set in the city of Padmavati. The king desires that his minister's daughter Malati marry a youth called Nandana. Malati is in love with Madhava ever since she saw him and drew his portrait. Madhava reciprocates, and draws a portrait of her in turn. Malati suspects her father's motives in falling in with the King's plans for her. A side plot involves the lovers' friends Makaranda and Madayantika. The latter is attacked by a tiger, and Makaranda rescues her, getting wounded in the process. After numerous travails, all ends well, with the two couples uniting.' (Wikipedia, 2019) It should be noted however that Sanskrit dramas are not very symmetrical. First, the love story takes place in a polygamous household, where the new lover will join the king's wives. Second, the female character is more passive. For instance, Śakuntalā 'is submissive and shy, she does not speak directly or hold her ground with the king but lets her friends do the talking' (Orsini, 2006, p. 9). Third, the social status of the male character (a king) is usually much higher than the social status of the female character (the daughter of an ascetic man).

Also, love is often conceived as an agonistic relationship between the male and the female character [START_REF] Ali | Courtly love and the aristocratic household in early medieval India[END_REF]. In their introduction to the Kamasutra, [START_REF] Doniger | Kamasutra[END_REF] note that the Sanskrit literature is not as romantic as the European and the Persian medieval literature:

The erotic love of the Kamasutra is not of the romantic variety as we know it today, from a tradition born in the twelfth century, in Bedier's Tristan and Isolde in Europe and Nizami's Laila and Majnun in the Islamic world. Its tenderness and affection for the partner is still, largely, in the service of sexual desire. (...) Longing requires an idealization that makes a lover experience the loved one as an infinitely superior being to whom he (in the case of the man) willingly subordinates his desire, to whom he can surrender and obey and thus reverse the accents of the master-servant metaphor of possessive desire. This is no part of the erotic love we find in the Kamasutra or, for that matter, in the classical literature of that period. In the Sanskrit and Tamil love poems, as in the textbook of erotics, the beloved is a partner who is a source of excitement and delight, enlivening the senses. A lover is to be explored thoroughly, in enormous detail, and therefore is not quickly abandoned. Yet the inner life or the past and future of a lover are not subjects of entrancement; the impulse is not of fierce monogamy. [START_REF] Doniger | Kamasutra[END_REF] Finally, the heroes do not sacrifice their life, their social situation and their resources to the pursuit of their love. As Daud Ali notes, while the device of the princess concealed identity provides the necessary narrative tension of the plot, 'this device is not meant to exalt love beyond or set against the exigence of political life, to redeem it or make it 'transcendent'' (Ali, 2006, p. 232).

We now turn to the other Indian classical literary tradition, that is Tamil. Love stories are very important in classical Tamil. In fact, narrative love poems ('akam') form a whole genre (divided in two sub-genres 'well-matched' and 'ill-matched'). Here is for instance the plot of Kuṟiñcippāṭṭu, a poetic work dated between 100 BCE and 100 CE (this dating is debated), (which belongs to the Pattuppāṭṭu an anthology of ten famous Tamil poems of the Classical period):

A chieftain of the hill-tribe falls in love at first sight with a fair maiden. The love is reciprocated. The girl's foster-sister helps the lovers to meet and enjoy their love. But the parents find the change in their daughter strange and suspicious. In the belief that she is ill they invite magicians and exorcists, but the cleverness of the foster-sister overcomes all obstacles, and, finally, when the parents are told that the young man saved their daughter twice-once from the danger of drowning and another time from a rogue-elephant, they give their consent. (Zvelebil, 1973, p. 58) In a different genre, the epic Silappatikaram (5-6 th c.) is another example of love story. Although the story is not very symmetric (it is centered on the female character and the male character dies half-way through the text), it is nonetheless highly romantic [START_REF] Ramanujan | The interior landscape: love poems from a classical Tamil anthology[END_REF]Zvelebil, 1973).

Also, the conception of love involved in Tamil literature is undoubtedly romantic. In Love in Sanskrit and Tamil literature, literary historian Devapoopathy Nadarajah notes that the conception of love theorized in the in the Tolkāppiyam, the oldest Tamil grammar text, is 'mutual and based on the union of hearts'. It 'excludes unrequited love' as well as 'excessive or lustful love'. It is 'not based on physical needs and attraction alone but has a romantic or psychological aspect as well' (Nadarajah, 1994, p. 7).

It is interesting to note that, just like in European and Central Asian traditions, romantic love is associated with virtue and self-discipline:

Servants and workmen are outside the five akam-types, for they cannot attain wealth, virtue and happiness; they do not have the necessary strength of character; they are moved only by passion and impulse. Only the cultured and well-matched pair is capable of the full range of love: union before and after marriage, separation, anxiety and patience, betrayal and forgiveness. (Zvelebil, 1973, p. 92) Finally, it must be noted that, unlike Sanskrit literature, Tamil literature is probably less elitist and more popular

Tamil is probably the one ancient language of India that bears the reflection of the life of an entire people; that is, its heroes are idealized types derived from what we might even call "common folk". Classical (i.e. the so-called Cankam) Tamil literature is not the literature of the barons; neither is it the literature of a monastic order; nor the literature of an elite, of a nagarika; it is thus not the literature of a particular social class. One major type of Tamil classical poems reflects the life of ordinary though idealized men and women, not the life of a sacerdotal or ruling nobility, of a priestly class, of nuns, monks, or of any elite group or groups of society. The whole gamut of basic human experience is contained in what has been best in Tamil writing. In this sense, it is very different from all strata of Sanskritic literature-from the Vedic literature which is the literature of a sacerdotal class, from the great epics which are the literature of the ruling barons, from the classical literature which is par excellence the literature of the "man about town", of the nagarika; it is also different from the Buddhist and Jain texts, since these are mostly the literature of monastic orders, of monks and nuns. (Zvelebil, 1973, p. 12) This account of Tamil literature suggests that the importance of love does not only reflect the taste of a special literary class, but of most elites in the Classical Tamil society.

Early medieval India began after the end of the Gupta Empire and the collapse of the Empire of Harsha in the 7 th c. CE and ended in the 13 th c. with the rise of the Delhi Sultanate in Northern India. Although the socio-economic development differs between regions and between periods, this long period is less dynamic than the classical period, and is marked by a substantial stagnation in economic, cultural and urban activity. Love stories are relatively rare. One exception is Naishadha Charita, an epic story in Sanskrit composed by Śrīharṣa about the story of Nala's early life; his falling in love with Damayanti, their marriage, and honeymoon (it is thus a rewriting of one episode of the Mahābhārata) (Varanekar, 1987).

Another example is the Maharashtri Prakrit novel Lilavati (c. 800 CE) describing the romance of the king Hāla (1 st c. CE) of the Satavahana dynasty with the princess of Simhaladvipa [START_REF] Pollock | Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia[END_REF]. [START_REF] Pollock | Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia[END_REF]. Sanskrit literary culture from the inside out. In Literary cultures in history: Reconstructions from South Asia, University of California Press Varanekar, S. (1987). "Naishadhacharita". In Datta, Amaresh (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature: K to Navalram. VIII. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 2849

Late Medieval period (c. 1200 -1526 CE)

The late medieval period is marked by repeated invasions of the Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans, the spread of Islam in India and the rise of vernacular languages. From 1100 on, economic development starts again. The majority of literary works, and in particular love stories, are now written in vernacular languages (McGregor, 1984). The first love stories are written in Persian with Amir Khusrow's Shirin and Khosrow, (1298) (see Persia), and then in Hindavi with Mulla Da'ud's Chandayana (1379), the story of Chanda and Lorik.

Chandayana is a very typical love story:

'A girl is married against her will to an older man who isn't not particularly goodlooking. She runs back to her parents' home and falls in love with a handsome mercenary employed by her father. Several hundred verses later, they elope and might live happily ever after.' [START_REF] Chari | When a Sufi poet composed one of India's earliest love stories in Hindi[END_REF] Chandayana inspired a long Indian Islamic literary tradition, called Sufi romances (Behl, 2007(Behl, , 2016)). These works describe the ascetic quest of the hero toward revelatory the beauty of a heroine by linking mortification, fasting and prayer with a female object of desire.

'In the generic formula, the first encounter of the hero and the heroine is treated as a way of conveying allegorically the Sufi concept of the first meeting of the immortal spirit with divinity in the phenomenal world. Erotic desire is aroused between the hero and the heroine this initial encounter, but in order to transform it into love, the hero and the heroine have to pass through several trials and ordeals. The have helpers, who commonly exemplify spiritual values such as mystical absorption (sahaja) or the abstract quality of love (pema/prema). And there are demons to fight and trials of strength that lovers must pass through in order to attain each other. The action is usually set in fantastic and exotic landscapes, described through a sensuous erotic poetics.

Love stories are also present in Tibeto-Burman with the love story of Prince Khamba and Princess Thoibi of Moirang (13 th c. (Datta, 1988(Datta, , p. 2418)). These love stories are sometimes imported, like those of Layla and Majnun, of Shirin and Khusrau and of Yusuf and Zulaikha (Joseph and Potiphar's wife) but also created from local Indian characters and stories: Dewalrani and Khizr Khan, Sassi and Punnun, Sohni and Mahinval, Hir and Ranjha or Mirza and Sahiban [START_REF] Alam | Love, passion and reason in Faizi's Nal-Daman[END_REF][START_REF] Deol | To die at the hands of love : Conflicting ideals of love in the Punjabi Mirza-Sahiban cycle[END_REF][START_REF] Suvorova | Masnavi : A study of Urdu romance[END_REF]. These examples span from Amir Kushrau (1253 -1325) to the 19 th century, and include different types of love stories, ranging from the chivalric adventure story, with a relatively large, multi-layered plot, wonderful encounters, parallel adventures and a happy ending, to more realistic stories, featuring two ordinary individuals, with an emphasis on the emotional states of the lovers and the tragic death of one or both of the protagonists [START_REF] Alam | Love, passion and reason in Faizi's Nal-Daman[END_REF][START_REF] Deol | To die at the hands of love : Conflicting ideals of love in the Punjabi Mirza-Sahiban cycle[END_REF][START_REF] Suvorova | Masnavi : A study of Urdu romance[END_REF].

To give but one example of this literature, here is the summary of Sihrul al-Bayan written by Mir Hasan in 1785):

'The main story of Sihrul Bayan is based on the love story of prince Benazir and Badremunir, a princess. Benazir is a handsome, delicate and passionate prince whose birth is prophesied by astrologers to the heirless, dismayed king. In the prime of his youth, a fairy is bewitched by his matchless beauty; she carries him to the abode of the fairies, where he is given a grand place to live in. He is provided with a magical horse to move about on, provided that he daily returns in time. One day, he sees a beautiful princess, Badremunir, the attractive and intelligent Najm-u-Nisa, daughter of the 'Wazir', in a royal garden amidst her maids. He falls in love with her. The feeling of love is reciprocated by Badremunir. Najm-u-Nisa arranges a secret meeting between them. But their exuberant joy is short-lived. The fairy, on hearing of Benazir's attachment to the princess, is aflame with anger, and wreaks vengeance on Benazir by throwing him into a deep and dark well in a vast desert. Badremunir, in consequence, is subjected to the pangs of separation. She is ultimately united with Benazir. She succeeds with the active help of Ferozeshah, the son of the king of jinns, in rescuing Benazir from the well. Thus, the lovers are re-united and their marriage takes place with royal gaiety'. [START_REF] Paniker | Medieval Indian Literature : Surveys and selections[END_REF] Turning to proper Indian tradition, love stories are also present in all main Indian literary languages. In Awadhi (one form of Hindi), one could mention Muhammad Jayasi's Padmavat (1540) for instance (McGregor, 1984). In fact, as McGregor writes in his History of Hindi literature, there is a specific genre of "romances":

"A romance would deal, typically, with the love of a hero and a heroine (usually a prince and princess, or children of a king and a minister respectively); with their separation and adventures in which magical and martial feats were stock elements, and with the reunion of the couple, by which time a liaison or second marriage might have been made by the hero (McGregor, 1984, p. 60) One must also mention Punjabi with writers such as Damodar Das Arora in the 16 th and Varis Shah (Hīr and Rāṃjhā), Hashim Shah (Sassī and Punnūṃ) or Ahmed Yar in the 18th [START_REF] Matringe | Littérature, histoire et religion au Panjab, 1890-1950[END_REF], Malayalam with Kotiyaviraham by Mazhamangalam Narayanan Namboodiri in the 16 th c. [START_REF] Paniker | Medieval Indian Literature : Surveys and selections[END_REF] and Nalacharitham by Unnayi Warrier in the 18 th c. (Datta, 1988(Datta, , p. 2418)), Bengali with Lor-Chandrani by Daulat Qazi (17 th c.), Padmavati by Alaol, Kalikamangal stories by Dwija Shndhar (16 th c.), Sabirid Khan (17 th c.) and Bharatchandra (18th c.) (d'Hubert, 2018;[START_REF] Paniker | Medieval Indian Literature : Surveys and selections[END_REF], Oriya with Kanakalata by Tribikrama Bhanja (18 th c.) (Datta, 1988(Datta, , p. 2418)), Rajasthani with Dhola Maravani by Kushalalabha (16 th c.) and Madhavanal Kamakandala chaupai by Ganapati Kayashta (16 th c.) (Datta, 1988(Datta, , p. 2418)), Odia with Upendra Bhanja's Rasika Haaravali (18 th c.) (Datta, 1988(Datta, , p. 2418)), Kashmiri with Mahmud Gami's Laila Majnu and Shirin Khusrau or Yuluf Zulaikha (18 th c.) and Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai's tragic romances such as Umar Marvi or Sassui Punnhun included in his Shah jo risalo (18 th c.).

In this survey, we aimed to be as comprehensive as possible, given the state of the scholarship. Our impression is that the frequency of romantic stories seems to increase in the early modern period (McGregor, 1984). However, this could be due to a larger number of extant works. Obviously, a more stringent test would have been to compare the level of romantic love across periods and across literary works. However, to the best of our knowledge, such a study does not exist at the moment (in contrast to Greece, Rome, Europe or China). Thus, the only conclusion we can draw is that our survey confirms the basic prediction that relative economic development is associated with the presence of romantic love.

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

There is no systematic comparison of romantic stories across literary periods. It is worth noting though that the Indian literature seems to be more romantic during the Classical period, with the romantic plays, as well as during the Early Modern period (McGregor, 1984), with the abundance of love stories in the new vernacular languages.

COMPARATIVE METHOD BETWEEN SIMILAR STORY LINES

Story lines from Archaic period to the Classical period

When we compare the early epic literature to the later courtly literature, love stories appear less present and less developed in the early period [START_REF] Orsini | Love in South Asia : A cultural history[END_REF]. This is particularly visible when medieval and early modern writers reuse old stories found in the early epics such as in The Recognition of Shakuntala (based on a story from the Mahābhārata (Thapar, 2011)), in Vikramōrvaśīyam (based on story from the Ṛgveda and the Mahābhārata) and in Kadambari (based on a story from Brihatkatha). In each case, the love story was indeed present in the earlier text, but in a much less developed form.

Story lines from Archaic period to the Late Medieval period

One of the most famous cases of rewriting consist is the love story between Nala and Damayanti, which originates in the Mahābhārata and inspired hundreds of new and highly romantic versions in the medieval and early modern periods. Importantly, these rewriting appear more romantic than their source. Comparing one passage (the initial lovesickness of Nala) of the initial story in Mahābhārata with its rewriting in the Naisadhacarita of Sriharsa (12th c.), Daud Ali notes that:

The great relish taken in describing the gradual manifestation of desire in Nala's body and his acute suffering as a lovestruck hero, largely absent in the Mahābhārata's account, represent a new set of concerns around erotic love. In the several hundred years which separated these accounts, Nala had been transformed from an epic hero to a courtly lover, or nayaka. (Ali, 2006, p. 214) The difference between the source and the rewriting suggests that romantic love has become more important in the later period. [START_REF] Ali | Courtly love and the aristocratic household in early medieval India[END_REF]. Courtly love and the aristocratic household in early medieval India. Cambridge University Press.

Story lines from Archaic period to the Late Medieval period

In his work on Middle Bengali literature, Thibault d'Hubert narrated the anecdote of Surdas, a 17 th c. Avadhi writer, who explains how the idea of writing a romance came while reading the story of Nala and Damayanti in the Mahabharata. As Thibault d'Hubert explains, he could not but project the romantic spirit of his time on the older and much less romantic version present in the Mahabharata (d'Hubert, 2018).

d [START_REF] Hubert | the Shade of the Golden Palace : Alaol and Middle Bengali Poetics in Arakan[END_REF]. In the Shade of the Golden Palace : Alaol and Middle Bengali Poetics in Arakan. Oxford University Press.

Story lines from Archaic period to the Early Modern period

The rewriting of the story of Nala and Damayanti continues during the early modern period, notably in Persian with Faizi's Nal-Daman (16 th c.), as well as in Malayalam with Unnayi Warriers's Kathakali (dance genre) play Nalacharitham and in Gujarati with Premanand Bhatt's Nalakhyan. Again, the story appears to be more romantic (Datta, 1989), with an insistence on self-discipline and virtue [START_REF] Alam | Love, passion and reason in Faizi's Nal-Daman[END_REF]). Peddanna's Manucaritramu (late 15 th c. -early 16 th c.) is another example of the romanticization of ancient plots. This work is the development of an episode in Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa relating to the birth of Svarochishamanu, who is one of the fourteen Manus. Yet, Manucaritramu has been read mainly for the love story of Pravaradu and Varthini, which has eclipsed the original religious them (Rao, 2003). The Persian literature goes back at least to the Achaemenid Empire (550 -330 BCE). Some religious texts have been preserved (the Avesta, etc.) from this period (and probably date back to an earlier period). However, they are written in ancient Iranian language called Avestic (different from Old Persian of the Achaemenid empire) and they cannot be considered as fictions. In Old Persian, almost all narrative fictions of the pre-Islamic period have been lost. Some of them can be reconstructed from the Islamic literature though. For instance, it is now accepted that Vis and Rāmin is based on a Parthian story, probably from the 1 st century CE. In the same way, the Persian translation of the Panchatantra, a collection of fables and stories, can be reconstructed through its Indian, Arabic and New Persian versions.

After the Arab conquest (630 -650 CE), Persian literature was initially overshadowed by Arabic. Persian writers mostly wrote in Arabic during the early Islamic period. However, from the 10 th c. onward, Persian became again a literary language in the form of New Persian. With the incorporation of Turk populations in the Persian culture, a period of cultural expansion started and Persian became the literary language in large parts of Central and South Asia. There is thus Persian literature from Iran, Turkey and Iraq, but also from Central Asia (Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan), Caucasus (Azerbaijan), as well as from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. In this section, I exclude the last three countries whose literature (including in Persian during the Moghul era) is discussed in the section about India.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Just like India, economic indicators for Persia are very limited, which makes very difficult to test the main hypothesis. Data about urbanization rate, wages, purchasing power and GDP per capita are absent and data about population growth and density very limited (McEvedy et al., 1978). However, there is no doubt that Persia was relatively developed at least from the Achaemenid Empire [START_REF] Chandler | Four thousand years of urban growth : An historical census[END_REF]Foldvari & Van Leeuwen, 2012;Morris, 2013a). Babylon, for instance, was the biggest city in the West until 300 BC. Foldvari and van Leeuwen estimate that per capita GDP may have reached $750 during the Achaemenid Empire (5 th c. BCE) and $780 during the Parthian Empire (3 rd -1 st c. BCE).

A new period of expansion started Golden Age of Persia occurred at the beginning of the Islamic period (S. F. Starr, 2013). A crude measure of urbanization by [START_REF] Chandler | Four thousand years of urban growth : An historical census[END_REF] suggests that affluence peaked in Persia between the 10 th and the 14 th c. (urbanization increases from 4% in 500 to 10% in 1000, reaching 14% for short periods of time). These measures corresponds to intuitive assessment of the golden age of Central Asia during in terms of scientific, technological and literary achievement (S. F. Starr, 2013). During the Timurid Empire (1370 -1507), Persia started to decline economically and culturally. In the early 19 th c., when the first indicators are available (Bolt & Van Zanden, 2014), Persia has a very low level of economic development: $600 in per capita GDP, compared to $1500 in Western Europe at the same period or $900 in Iraq at the end of the Golden Age. We thus need to break the Islamic period in two: the medieval period (900 -1500), dynamic and highly developed, and the early modern period (1500 -1800), much less dynamic and poorer. Based on this economic assessment of the history of Persia, the first prediction is that there should be love stories in Persian literature at least from the Achaemenid period on and up to the colonial period. [START_REF] Davis | Vis o Rāmin[END_REF]. In the same way, Vāmiq u 'Adhrā is based on an ancient Greek novel Metiochus and Parthenope [START_REF] Hägg | The virgin and her lover : Fragments of an ancient Greek novel and a Persian epic poem[END_REF]. Another way to know the content of pre-Islamic fiction is to study the translations from Middle Persian to Arabic during the Islamic period. The Baghdadi bookseller Ibn al-Nadīm (late 10th c.) provides a catalogue of these translations such as the Thousand Tales (Hazār Afsān), the direct ancestor of the Thousand and One Nights and the animal fables of Karīrak ud Damanak (Kalīla & Dimna), known in Europe as the Fables of Bidpai. While most of them are lost, their title may provide an idea of their genre such as fables (The Bear and the Fox, Fable and Amusement), tales (Ruzbeh and the Orphan, The Miserly King) and indeed romantic stories (Moshkdāna and Shāhzanān, Khalīl and Daʿd, and Būsfās and Finīlūs) [START_REF] Cross | The poetics of romantic love in "Vis & Rāmin[END_REF]. The identification of these works as romance may seems speculative. However, it is important to bear in mind that the titles of the Persian romances follow a convention similar to Greek ones and take the names of the two lovers:

Vāmeq & ʿAẕrā, Varqa & Golshāh, Vis & Rāmin, Khosrow & Shirin, Layli & Majnun.
By contrast the "heroic" narratives mentioned tend to identify themselves by adding the suffix -nāma ("story of") to the name of their central protagonist [START_REF] Cross | The poetics of romantic love in "Vis & Rāmin[END_REF].

The existence of these romantic stories is further demonstrated in the subsequent chapters of Ibn al-Nadīm's Catalogue, which list dozens of books under the following headings: "Those lovers who loved before and during Islam and had books composed about them"; "Those lovers from the rest of the people about whom books were composed"; "The elegant beloveds"; "Those lovers whose records entered the evening-tales"; "Names of humans who loved jinn and of jinn who loved humans." [START_REF] Cross | The poetics of romantic love in "Vis & Rāmin[END_REF] It may be possible to go furher in time. It has been proposed that the ancient Greek love stories were based or influenced by a lost Persian literature [START_REF] Davis | Vis o Rāmin[END_REF]. References to Persia and to the Persian culture are frequent Greek novels. Also, in two of them (Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe and Heliodorus's Ethiopica), substantial scenes take place at the Persian court. Morevover, prototypical elements for the plots of all the romances are to be found in Xenophon's Cyropaedia (4th c. BCE), in the tale of Panthea and Abradatas, a story that is Persian in every detail as it takes place at Cyrus' court. Similarly, in the Deipnosophistae, Athenaeus of Naucratis (2 nd c. CE) reports from Chares of Mytilene (4 th c. BCE) the love story of Zariadres and Odatis, another love story taking place in Persia, with Persian characters. We also know that Metiochus and Parthenope was a popular story on the Euphrates in the third century, because one of the elite of Zeugma had its protagonists illustrated in a mosaic (Stoneman et al., 2012).

All these observations suggest the existence of love stories during the Achaemenid and the Parthian periods [START_REF] Cross | The poetics of romantic love in "Vis & Rāmin[END_REF][START_REF] Davis | Vis o Rāmin[END_REF]Gallais, 1974). As historian of Persian literature Julie Meisami writes:

We can only conjecture, on the basis of reminiscences in later works, about the nature of the love poetry composed by the court poets of pre-Islamic Iran; but it seems safe to assume that the close mixture of the erotic and the courtly (…) date from antiquity. (Meisami, 2014, p. 22)

Early Islamic period

The The plot of the romance is simple. Majnun falls in love with Leyli at school but Leyli's father forbids any contact. Separated from Leyli, Majnun becomes obsessed with her, singing of his love for her in public. The obsession grows to the point that he sees and evaluates everything in terms of Leyli; hence his sobriquet "the possessed" (Majnun).

When he realizes that he cannot obtain union even when other people intercede for him, he grows disillusioned with society and roams naked in the desert among the beasts.

Contemplating the image of Leyli increases his love so that he cannot eat or sleep. His only activity is thinking of Leyli and composing love songs for her. Meanwhile, Leyli is betrothed against her will but she guards her virginity by resisting her husband's advances. She arranges secret meetings with Majnun, and when they meet, they have no physical contact, rather they recite poetry to each other from a distance. When Leyli's husband dies, removing the legal obstacles to a licit union, Majnun is so focused on the ideal picture of Leyli that he runs away to the desert. Leyli dies out of grief and is buried in her bridal dress. Hearing this news, Majnun rushes to her grave where he instantly dies. They are buried side by side and their graves become a site of pilgrimage. In the coda, someone dreams that they are united in Paradise, living as a king and queen. (Seyed-Gohrab, 2009) These love stories were so popular that they inspired generations of Persian writers (Safa, 1986). No less than 59 versions of Layla and Majnun and 51 versions of Khosrow and Shirin can be found in Persian (Seyed-Gohrab, 2009), both during the Golden Age of the Persian literature, and the subsequent Timurid and Safavid dynasties. Note that Persian love stories are often thought to derive from Arabic version. This is actually not the case. For instance, while the legend of Layla and Majnun circulated in anecdotal forms in Arabic aḵbār, the anecdotes were mostly very short. Furthermore, they were loosely connected, and show little or no plot development (Seyed-Gohrab, 2009). In the case of Layla and Majnun, it is only with the Persian poet Nizami that the story becomes a consistent narrative [START_REF] Miquel | Majnûn et Laylâ[END_REF]Seyed-Gohrab, 2009).

There is no doubt that the kind of feelings involved in these stories are romantic. In fact, historian of Persian medieval literature Julie Meisami explicitly used the term 'courtly love' to insist on the similarities with the kind of love observed by historian of medieval literature:

While Persian poets do not speak of courtly love any more than do their European counterparts, they do make explicit connections between love, courtesy (muruvat), chivalry (janvanmardi, futuvat), and the virtues associated with all three. (Meisami, 2014, p. XI) In particular, Meisami emphasizes the importance of reciprocity and respect in these love stories, which contrasts with the more archaic conception of love present in particular in the archaic Arabic poetry (see Arab World):

It [Medieval Persian romance] relies on a conception of love that is intimately linked with courtly society and courtly ideals and that contrasts with the obsessive but selfimmolating love typical of the 'Udhri poets. In this poetry, it is not the lover's behavior-his suffering at his beloved's cruelty, his pleas for favor and reminders of past vows, his total dedication to his lady-that is the essential element; such motifs are, as Dronke has shown, to a greater or lesser extent characteristic of all love poetry. (Meisami, 2014, p. 57) All these observations confirm the romantic character of Persian love stories during the early Islamic period.

Late Islamic period (Timurid and Sassanid dynasties)

As we have noted in the previous section, new versions of Layla and Majnun and Khosrow and Shirin were produced after to the Golden Age of Persia. However, it seems that romantic stories were less culturally important during the Timurid period and even less so during the Safavid periods (de Fouchécour, 2006;Losensky, 2009;Yarshater, 1986).

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

There is no systematic comparison of romantic stories across periods. It is worth noting though that the Persian literature seem to become more romantic with time. While love stories were present during the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasannid periods, they seem to have been less culturally important. Cross notes that many of the love stories (e.g. Vis & Rāmin, Bijan and Manijeh) had long been in the repertoire of the minstrels. But it is only in the 11 th c. that they started inspiring official poets and entering in the high literature:

On their own, such tales do not seem to have been considered worthy material for a masnavi to be dedicated to the glory of a monarch-imagine Milton deciding to versify the stories of Cinderella and Rumplestiltskin for his great epic cycle-but Ferdowsi overcame this obstacle by incorporating the story into the larger framework of the Shāhnāma, a book of kings, heroes, wisdom, and glory, exactly the kind of thing that patrons craved to have attached to their name. (Cross, 2015, p. 93) It seems that during Ferdowsi's lifetime, and perhaps partly due to the impact of the Shāhnāma itself, poets realized the potential power of the love-story tradition and audiences warmed to their ideas; the genre was losing its stigma as a kind of idle fantasy. (Cross, 2015, p. 93) As Julie Meisami writes, the importance of epic poetry declined during the 10 th c. 'The courtly verse romance, the primary subject of which is not heroism and valor but love, became a major genre of courtly poetry' (Meisami, 2014, 81, see also ).

The lack of economic data prevents us from going further because it is not possible to compare the Sassanian and the early Islamic period with the Golden Age of the Persian culture. However, this increase in the cultural importance of romantic stories during the 10 th and 11 th c. fits well with the cultural development of the Persian culture during this period.

Another increase in romantic love can be observed in the later period., The oldest love story, Vis and Rāmin by Gorgani (11 th c.), in contrast to virtually all subsequent Persian romances, celebrated sexual love in and for itself [START_REF] Davis | Vis o Rāmin[END_REF]. In the same way, the version Shirin and Koshrow by Amir Khusrow (1253 -1325) seems notably more romantic than the earlier version by Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209), although Neami is more realistic, more attentive to the psychology of the two lovers (Orsatti, personnal communication). For instance, in Khusrow's version, 'Širin affirms that her decision not to yield to the king has nothing to do with the uncertain situation of his kingdom, thus decidedly distancing herself from the figure of Širin in Neẓāmi's poem.' [START_REF] Orsatti | Encyclopaedia Iranica[END_REF]) Also, 'in addition to defending values such as virginity, she has a more profound requirement: that their love shall be strong and lasting, not a fleeting passion.' (Gallais, 1974;[START_REF] Orsatti | Encyclopaedia Iranica[END_REF]. The increase of romantic love in Persian literature is also visible in the increase of dialogues, monologues and descriptions of feelings and motivation (Meisami, 2014). However, the lack of good economic data prevents us to test the hypothesis that this increase in romantic level is due to economic development.

Story lines from Abbasid Caliphate (Arabic) to the Early Islamic Period

When the Arabs invaded the Persian Empire and founded a new capital in Irak, Persian writers came in close contact to the Arabic literature. This contact resulted in the rewriting of several Arabic work. The most ancient one is probably ʿAyyuqi's Varqa and Golšāh written in the 11 th c. (Khaleghi-Motlagh, 2011;Rubanovich, 2016). But the most famous one is the rewriting of the legend of Layla and Majnun into the romance Leili o Majnun by Nizami, followed by many other versions, including Amir Khusrow Dehlavi's Majnun o Leyli in 1299 (written in India), and Jami's version in 1484 (in Afghanistan) (A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, 2009).

Nizami transformed what was a loose biography written around dozens of poems into a consistent and well-organized narrative. He also changed the setting of the story, moving from the desert to the city: Majnun does not meet Layla in a camp, but at school with other children (A. A. Seyed-Gohrab, 2009).

Most importantly, the story seems more romantic than its Arabic version. In particular, the character of Layla has become more important and more active:

Nezami is probably the first poet to plead the case for Layla, presenting her as a conscious woman who is completely aware of how distressing her position has become. The elaborate attention that Nezami gives to Layla is unique. He has even changed the title of the story from Majnun and Layla, which several other poets had used, to Layla and Majnun. (A. Seyed-Gohrab, 2020, p. 4) Since the two periods (the Arab Classical period and the Persian Golden Age) are highly developed and since the economic indicators are scarce, it is difficult to make any prediction regarding the transformation of love stories from Arabic to Persians. In any case, and in line with our main hypothesis, the Arabic version as well as the many Persian versions are all very romantic. Khaleghi-Motlagh, D. (2011) [START_REF] Lo Cascio | Ancient and Pre-Modern Economies : GDP in the Roman Empire and Early Modern Europe[END_REF]McEvedy et al., 1978;[START_REF] Scheidel | Roman population size : The logic of the debate. People, land, and politics: demographic developments and the transformation of Roman Italy[END_REF], urbanization went from less than 5% up to 20% [START_REF] Bowman | Settlement, urbanization, and population[END_REF] and GDP per capita probably doubled from $400 to $850 (Maddison, 2007a;[START_REF] Scheidel | The Size of the Economy and the Distribution of Income in the Roman Empire[END_REF] or tripled according to the highest estimates [START_REF] Lo Cascio | Ancient and Pre-Modern Economies : GDP in the Roman Empire and Early Modern Europe[END_REF][START_REF] Temin | The Roman market economy[END_REF]. Quantitative archaeological series confirm this trends showing an increase in shipwrecks (a proxy of international trade), wood finds, coins in circulation, lead pollution, building inscriptions, water mills and papyruses [START_REF] Bowman | Quantifying the Roman economy : Methods and problems[END_REF], 2011;[START_REF] Jongman | Re-constructing the Roman economy[END_REF]Morris, 2013a).

Although it is difficult to quantify standards of livings in ancient societies, several indirect cues suggest that economic development in Rome indeed lead to higher standards of living [START_REF] Jongman | Re-constructing the Roman economy[END_REF]Morris, 2013a). Finds of animal bones on Roman sites (a proxy for meat consumption) show a rapid increase from the later fourth century BCE onward, both in Italy and in the provinces after they had been conquered by Rome. The same trend can be seen in the installed capacity of fish farms and fish-salting installations along the coast. Data on food plants show a strong improvement in the range of fruits and vegetables that were consumed in northwestern Europe after the Roman conquest [START_REF] Bakels | Access to luxury foods in Central Europe during the Roman period : The archaeobotanical evidence[END_REF]. The size of theatres, amphitheaters, porticoes, public baths and the like increased until the 2 nd c. CE. Mass production of wheel-made, well-fired pottery, amphorae for wine and olive oil, and basemetal ornaments and tools reached unprecedented levels in the first few centuries CE. Also, indirect evidences (mainly the price of slave, a proxy for the price of labor) suggest that labor income rose during the Republic and the Empire [START_REF] Jongman | Re-constructing the Roman economy[END_REF].

After the 2 nd c. CE, the Roman population and well as the Roman economy start to decline, probably because of a change in climate and an increase circulation of pathogens in Eurasia [START_REF] Harper | The fate of Rome : Climate, disease, and the end of an empire[END_REF]. International trade declined, size of building, public inscription, size of cows, etc. [START_REF] Bowman | Quantifying the Roman economy : Methods and problems[END_REF][START_REF] Ward-Perkins | The fall of Rome : And the end of civilization[END_REF]

Roman Republic

The Latin world experienced an evolution similar to the Greek world. The first works, now lost (Andronicus' adaptation of the Odyssey, Naevius' epics on the first Punic war, Ennius' epics the Annales), do not seem to have been romantic at all. By contrast, in the 2 nd c. Plautus and Terence's comedies, inspired from the Greek New Comedy, display considerable interest in romantic love (Konstan, 2014a;Rudd, 1981;Walcot, 1987). For instance, in the Cistellaria, both characters talk about their love sickness (her: "I suffer, my Gymnasia, I suffer cruelly; it is a terrible torment; sick is my soul, sick are my eyes, I am only evil and pain. (…) Crazy as I was! It's my fault that I feel such bitter pain. Should I have been attached to him alone, to devote my whole life to him?" (I.1); him: "Is there a man who suffers from torments equal to those of my soul? Love torments me, attaches me to the cross, shakes me, stings me with the sting, turns me on the easel. O misery! life abandons me; I feel myself carried away, pulled, torn away, torn apart; a cloud envelops and confuses my thoughts" (I.2).

Others aspects of the Latin comedies strongly suggests that people's views were favorable to love. In Dyskolos, the young man's father is not surprised that he wishes to marry for love and he claims to regard eros as the foundation for a secure marriage: 'I not only want you to marry the girl you're in love with (erais), but I say you ought to ... (788)'; 'I realize that a young man's marriage will be secure if he is persuaded to enter on it by eros' (786ff) (Brown, 1993;Rudd, 1981).

Early Roman Empire and Late Roman Empire

The comparison with the Early Empire and the Late Empire is much straightforward as there is no real love story produced during the Late Empire. [START_REF] Parkes | Love or war? Erotic and martial poetics in Claudian's de Raptu Proserpinae[END_REF]. Love or war? Erotic and martial poetics in Claudian's de Raptu Proserpinae. Classical Journal, The, 110(4), 471-492. Tsai, S. K. (2007). Hellish Love : Genre in Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae. Helios, 1(1), 37-68.

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME GENRE

The continuity of the literary genre throughout the Greek and Latin tradition allow for comparing the relative intensity of romantic love within the same genre.

Epic: Archaic Greece and Roman Republic

The first Latin epics from the 3 rd and 2 nd c. BCE are lost, but commentaries and quotation allow to have a fairly good idea of their content and style. What is interesting is that they were heavily influence by Greek epics. In fact, the goal of the first Latin writers was explicitly to 'romanize' Greek epic poetry.

Epic: Archaic Greece and Early Roman Empire

A comparison is possible with the Early Roman Epics (The Aeneid, The Achilleid, The Argonautica), and reveals that the importance of love is much higher than in the archaic Greek epics (Foley, 2008). In Virgil's Aeneid (1 st c. BCE), for instance, the love story between Aeneas and Dido amounts to a substantial part of the epics and where Dido is active female character. The story of Dido and Aeneas is a striking illustration of the change of values as Aeneas explicitly considers giving up his political ambitions to stay with Dido.

Although, summoned by the Gods, he will eventually abandon Dido, Virgils' epics show that love is now a value as much important as politics. Love is also important in Statius's Achilleid (1 st c. CE) and in Flaccus' Argonautica (1 st c. CE). This difference between Archaic Greek epics and Roman epics is all the more striking that the late writers saw themselves as the heirs of the archaic writers whom they wanted to emulate (Harrison, 2008). Many aspects of the style (syntax, meter, vocabulary, genealogies) and the themes (journey around the Mediterranean, visit to the underworld) are explicitly modeled on the early epics. Yet, when it came to love, they clearly departed from their models.

Tragedy: Classical Greece and Early Roman Empire

While economic development would predict that Latin tragedies would be less romantic than their Greek counterpart, such prediction is difficult to test because classical tragedies were not very romantic (hence the prediction that the level of romanticism should remain stable) [START_REF] Gregory | Story lines from Hellenistic period Greece to the Late Republic Latin comedies such as Cistellaria and Bacchides are inspired by Greek story lines (respectively Synaristosae and Dis Exapaton, from Menander). Again (Comparative method[END_REF]. [START_REF] Gregory | Story lines from Hellenistic period Greece to the Late Republic Latin comedies such as Cistellaria and Bacchides are inspired by Greek story lines (respectively Synaristosae and Dis Exapaton, from Menander). Again (Comparative method[END_REF]. A companion to Greek tragedy. John Wiley & Sons.

Novel: Early Roman Empire (Greek) and Early Roman Empire (Latin)

The Greek part of the Empire was more developed than the Latin part [START_REF] Bowman | Settlement, urbanization, and population[END_REF]Maddison, 2007b). We thus predict that Roman novels (The Satyrica of Petronius, Apuleius' Metamorphoses, Lucian's Verae Historiae) should be less romantic than their Greek counterparts. This is indeed the case: the protagonists are less equal in age, personal qualities or social standing, they are less likely to fall in love at the beginning of the narrative, their love is less likely to be reciprocal and they are less likely to be subjected to temptations and less likely to resist such temptations (Konstan, 2014). Konstan, D. (2014). Sexual symmetry : Love in the ancient novel and related genres. Princeton University Press.

COMPARATIVE METHOD BETWEEN SIMILAR STORY LINES

Story lines from Archaic Greece to the Early Roman Empire

When discussing the evolution of epics, we have already seen that the writers of the Early Roman period (Statius, Flaccus) romanticized the story lines of Archaic Greece (the War of Troy, the myth of the Argonauts) (Foley, 2008;Harrison, 2008). For instance, in his Achilleid, Statius (1 st c. CE) gives much more importance to the romantic story between Achilles and Deidemia than archaic epics (8-7 th c. BCE) (Fantuzzi, 2012). Another example is the Ilias Latina in which Agamemnon has fallen in love with Chryseis, a clear innovation [START_REF] Glei | The Ilias Latina as a Roman Continuation of the Iliad. In Brill's Companion to Prequels, Sequels, and Retellings of Classical Epic[END_REF].

Another case of rewriting inspired by story lines from Archaic Greece is The Heroides (1 st c. BCE), fifteen epistolary poems written by a selection of aggrieved heroines of Greek and Roman mythology (Penelope, Briseis, Ariadne, etc.) in address to their heroic lovers. In this work, Ovid gives much more importance to romantic passion that what can be found in his sources. Maybe more important, Ovid is one of the first ancient writers to give so much space to the feeling of women, clearly revealing a change of attitudes toward more symmetry in romantic relationships. The same observation can be made for The Metamorphoses.

within the same genre/Comedy), what remains of Menander's texts suggest that the Greek models were more romantic than their Latin imitator [START_REF] James | Plautus and the Marriage Plot[END_REF]. The case of Terence, who is two generations younger than Plautus, is less clear for his characters express much more romantic views of male-female relationships [START_REF] Fontaine | The Terentian Reformation : From Menander to Alexandria[END_REF]Konstan, 1986). (Mair, 2001(Mair, , 2012;;[START_REF] Pimpaneau | Anthologie de la littérature chinoise classique[END_REF]. Narrative texts start becoming more abundant during the Warring States period and the Qin and Han dynasties. However, they are mostly philosophical (e.g. "The Butterfly Dream" in Zhuangzi) and historical (e.g. the love story of Sima Xiangru and Lady Zhuowen jun told by Sima Qian in Records of the Grand Historian). In line with our methods, we choose not to include these texts becaue they remains non-fictional in essence, just like Suetone's The Twelve Caesars and Plato's Myth of Err in the Republic (see Methods above).

Very shorts fictions can be found in In Search for the Supernatural (4 th c.) or A New account of Tales of the World (5 th c.) as well as in some narrative verses and ballads [START_REF] Chang | The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature[END_REF]Mair, 2012;Nienhauser, 1986a). As historian of Chinese literature Y. W. Ma (Nienhauser, 1986a) writes: 'The Six Dynasties is the first period that provides a host of concret examples of prose compositions which consciously create imaginative reality, with or without the use of historical sources.' It should also be noted that a rich tradition of oral fictions existed in the early imperial period. However, these fictions are not been recorded during this period and only their later versions are well documented.

But it is only with the Tang and the development of chuanqi that proper narrative fictions emerge [START_REF] Chang | The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature[END_REF]Mair, 2012). Fictions continue to develop during the Song and Yuan periods, and reached their full development during the late Ming and Qing (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Plum in the Golden, Journey to the West, etc.).

Drama also appears quite late compared to the Europe and South India. It is certain that performances embodying an essential dramatic principle-the telling of a story by actingexisted at least as early as the 1 st c. (Shi, 2015) but it is probably only under the Yuan dynasty that modern theater, with elaborate plots and specific scripts, really emerge, first with zaju and then with chuanqi (Shi, 2015;Mair, 2012). A few precursors of these dramas (in particular the precursor of The story of the Western Wing) have been preserved in the form of 'chantefable' (or medley of prose and songs in "all keys and mode") from the Song period.

We adopted the traditional periodization by dynasties. This periodization does not necessarily well with economic development but it is the most accepted. Obviously, there are other way to periodize Chinese history. One increasingly standard periodization is to divide Chinese history in the pre-imperial, early imperial (from the Han dynasty to the Tang dynasty) and late imperial (from the Song dynaasty to the Qing). However, these periods are too broad for our project, and they also have their own problems [START_REF] Von Glahn | Imagining pre-modern China. The song-Yuan-Ming transition in Chinese history[END_REF].

Things started to deteriorate during the 18 th c. during which the acceleration of population growth outpace economic growth. As a result, per capita GDP, urbanization as well as book consumption decreased during the 18 th and 19 th c. (Broadberry et al., 2018;[START_REF] Xu | The Production and Circulation of Manuscripts and Printed Books in China Compared to Europe[END_REF]Y. Xu et al., 2015).

Compared to Europe, economic growth has been much lower in China during the period of study. While Kenneth Pomeranz famously argued that China remained as developed as Europe until the late 18th c. (Pomeranz, 2001), a range of new indicators (GDP per capita, urbanization, book production suggest economic development probably became higher in Europe as soon as 1700 and possibly much earlier (Broadberry et al., 2018;Bosker et al., 2013;[START_REF] Rozman | Urban Networks in Ch'ing China and Tokugawa Japan[END_REF]Y. Xu et al., 2015). This suggests that, at least during the Qing dynasty, love should be more important in Western European literature than in Chinese literature. Pre-Tang Dynasties (5th -6th c.)

Before the Tang, lyric verse has been the foremost literary genre in China and many examples of love and courtship poems can be found from the earliest times be it in the Book of Songs or the yuefu poems of the Han and later. By comparison, literary fictions are rare during this period. Yet, there are some cases of love stories such as the yuefu Peacock Flies Southeast (5 th c.). In this long narrative verse, a wife is sent back to her home by her mother-in-law despite her good behavior and the love that both wife and husbands have for each other. She tries not to remarry, but her family puts too much pressure on her. Eventually, she committed suicide by drowning herself. While hearing this, her husband, committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in the garden (Mair, 2001b). Another case is the short story Han P'eng in the collection In search of the supernatural (Gan et al., 1996). It tells the story of Han P'eng, who loses his wife to the prince of Sung. Unable to be reunited, they both commit suicide separately. In the end, they are buried separately but next to each other and to symbolize their mutual love, two trees grow over their graves with branches intertwined. The same romantic features are found in both stories: 'a devoted couple, the wife torn from her husband, vows of eternal love despite separation, separate suicides, graves joined by overarching trees, sad chorus of mandarin ducks, and the sympathy of the public for the dead couple' (Mair, 2001b).

Gan, B., DeWoskin, K. J., & Crump, J. I. (1996). In Search of the Supernatural : The Written Record. Stanford University Press. Mair, V. H. (2001). The shorter Columbia anthology of traditional Chinese literature. Columbia University Press.

Tang Dynasty (907-960)

During the Tang dynasty, many love stories appared as short stories (Chuanqi) such as the Li hun ji, Tale of Li Wa or Yingying's Biography [START_REF] Hsieh | Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction[END_REF]. Since these stories are usually unknown outside of the field of Chinese literature, it is worth quoting verbatim their abstract in Mair's The Columbia History of Chinese Literature:

'"Li-hun chi" (Record of the Disembodied Soul), by Ch'en Hsu än-yu (fl. 770), is a love story. Wang Chou grows up in the same town as his cousin, Chang Ch'ien-niang; although not formally betrothed, the couple hopes to marry. When her father promises Ch'ien-niang to a colleague, Wang is angered and leaves for the capital. Before he has gone far, Ch'ien-niang catches up with him and the two elope to Shu (modern-day Szechwan). After five years there, Ch'ien-niang asks to go home to see her parents and the couple travel to her hometown together. Upon arriving, Wang Chou is told that Ch'ien-niang has been ill in bed since Wang left five years earlier. Eventually the two manifestations of Ch'ien-niang meet each other and their bodies meld together. The couple live together for another forty years in happiness.' (Mair, 2012, p. 586) '"Li Wa chuan" (An Account of Li Wa), by Po Hsing-chien (775-826, brother of the famous poet Po Chu ̈ -yi), is another of the talented-scholar-meets-courtesan tales: the scholar here remains unnamed and the courtesan is Li Wa. After a formulaic initial meeting, the love affair develops until the young man's money is exhausted. Li Wa's manager, an old woman, then moves Li Wa to an unknown location, in part because Li has fallen in love with the young scholar. The young man is forced to take a job singing at funerals. His father discovers him in that guise and beats him so badly that he almost dies. By chance Li Wa finds him in this state and nurses him back to health. She buys her way out of the profession and strictly supervises his study. Three years later he passes the examination with honors and is appointed to office. His position secured, he wins reconciliation with his family and formally marries Li Wa. His successful career is matched by the honor Li Wa receives when she is named Lady of Ch'ien. The tale is noteworthy for its realistic portrayal of the young man's problems after he is destitute and of the difficulty his family has in accepting his actions.' (Mair, 2012, p. 586) It is worth noting that love stories are also present in poetry. The most notable example is 'The Song of Lasting Regret', a romanticized retelling by Bai Juyi (772-846) of the love story between Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and his favorite concubine Yang Guifei (719-756) (Mair, 2001b). [START_REF] Hsieh | Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction[END_REF]

Song, Liao, Jin, and Western Xia dynasties (960-1234)

Under the Song dynasty, population and urban population continue to grow and a number of indicators suggest that economic development continue to increase. HRL love stories emerge with The Story of Yingying, a guzi ci (drum song) by Zhao Lingzhi (1051-1134) and its subsequent rewrorking such as The Story of the Western Wing in All Keys and Modes, a zhugongdiao (ballad) by Dong Jieyan (fl. 1190) (Lanselle, 2015;Mair, 2012;Song, 2004;[START_REF] West | Wang Shifu's version does not alter the plot in dramatic manner, yet some change makes it more romantic[END_REF] (see the summary of the work in the Yuan Dynasty section and a longer discussion below in Comparative method between similar story lines).

Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)

Love stories continue to flourish under the Yuan, in particular through drama (Zaju), with famous plays such as The Story of the Western Wing, Over the Wall or Rain on the Paulownia Tree. Overall, it is estimated that at least fifteen plays written during the Yuan are centered on a serious love story (Song, 2004).

The Story of the Western Wing is probably the most famous of these HRL stories. Because medieval Chinese stories are not well known to non-specialists, it is worth presenting one of them in more details.

The play has twenty-one acts in five parts. It tells the story of a secret love affair between Zhang Sheng, a young scholar, and Cui Yingying, the daughter of a chief minister of the Tang court. The two first meet in a Buddhist monastery. Yingying and her mother have stopped there to rest while escorting the coffin of Yingying's father to their native town. Zhang Sheng falls in love with her immediately, but is prevented from expressing his feelings while Yingying is under her mother's watchful eye. The most he can do is express his love in a poem read aloud behind the wall of the courtyard in which Yingying is lodging.

However, word of Yingying's beauty soon reaches Sun the Flying Tiger, a local bandit. He dispatches ruffians to surround the monastery, in the hopes of taking her as his consort. Yingying's mother agrees that whoever drives the bandits away can have Yingying's hand in marriage, so Zhang Sheng contacts his childhood friend General Du, who is stationed not far away. The general subdues the bandits, and it seems that Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying are set to be married. However, Yingying's mother begins to regret her rash promise to Zhang Sheng, and takes back her word, with the excuse that Yingying is already betrothed to the son of another high official of the court. The two young lovers are greatly disappointed, and begin to pine away with their unfulfilled love. Fortunately, Yingying's maid, Hongniang, takes pity on them, and ingeniously arranges to bring them together in a secret union. When Yingying's mother discovers what her daughter has done, she reluctantly consents to a formal marriage on one condition: Zhang must travel to the capital and pass the civil service examination. To the joy of the young lovers, Zhang Sheng proves to be a brilliant scholar, and is appointed to high office. The story thus ends on a happy note, as the two are finally married. (Romance of the Western Chamber -Wikipedia, s. d.)

The Story of the Western Wing matches perfectly the pattern of caizi-jiaren stories (adapted from Song, 2004):

1) It is a love story between a handsome young scholar and a beautiful girl, both of whom display an exceptional gift for poetry and prose. 2) Both the hero and the heroine come from distinguished families. 3) They meet under an unexpected circumstance and fall in love at first sight. 4) Some hindrances occur in the way of their marriage; it is usually the girl's mother or father who is opposed to the match because of the scholar's lack of an official rank. 5) The love stories invariably end with the happy reunion of the couple, which in most cases is made possible by the caizi's success in the imperial examination.

There is thus no doubt that High Romantic Love stories existed during this period.

Another famous example is the classical novel Jiao Hong ji (Story of Miss Jiao and Miss Hong). Here is Richard Wang's summary:

It narrates the tragic love of two cousins: Wang Jiaoniang, the heroine, and Shen Chun, her cousin aitd lover. Shen and Jiaoniang fall in love, but Jiaoniang's father, Wang Tongpan, does not permit their marriage and orders Jiaoniang to marry the son of the powerful and influential Shuai family. Jiaoniang resists her father's order by starving herself to death, and Shen also dies for their love. At the end of the novel, their spirits are transformed into two mandarin ducks which appear on their grave, where they are buried together. Due to its moving characteristics, this story had a deep impact on late Ming literature, a point to which I will return later. (Wang, 1994, 14) Although Jiao Hong ji is less known than The Story of the Western Wing. It is in fact more romantic. First, the symmetry is higher, for the heroin repeatedly express a high commitment to her lover: 'First of all, she manifests a deep and loyal commitment to her lover. Although this is the essence of any moving story of sincere love, it was seldom displayed before. Even the heroine Cui Yingying of the great Yuan love drama XIXIANGJI (ROMANCE OF THE WESTERN CHAMBER) does not show this. However, in JHJ, when Jiaoniang reveals her feelings to Shen for the first time, she says, "If the matter is unsuccessful, I should die out of gratitude for your love." ' (Wang, 1994) The male character is also ready to commit suicide: Shen (...) sets a precedent in Chinese literature in which the hero dies for love. In his condolence ci poem "Yi yaoji," he expresses, "I vow to the gods that I promise to give my heart to Jiaoniang even if I die." He does not merely say this, but keeps his word. He attempts to commit suicide by hanging himself with the fragrant handkerchief Jiaoniang sent him as a love token. Even though he too is rescued, he still wants to die for love. At last he dies by refusing to eat in his deep grief. (Wang, 1994) Emotional attachmnt is also expressed more clearly, in particular by the female character:

It is revealed that Jiaoniang had loved Shen for a long time. As she say when she reveals her feelings to Shen: "I knew your heart a long time ago . . . . I haven't been able to pay attention to anything for several months. I am restless in sleep, and dream of you as well. Now I have no appetite for food or drink." Such a daring revelation of feelings by a heroine is unprecedented in Chinese literature. (Wang, 1994) The reordering of life priorities is not only visible in suicide, but in the priority given to love over career:

The hero Shen Chun is also more remarkable than either Zhangsheng in the ROMANCE OF THE WESTERN CHAMBER or Liu Mengmei in PEONY PAVILION. Zhangsheng and Liu Mengmei do love Cui Yingying and Du Liniang, respectively; but Zhang and Liu have an even stronger commitment to scholarly honor and official rank. Shen, on the other hand, never regards official rank as more important than his love for Jiaoniang. He is forced by his parents to prepare for the civil service examinations, but all he thinks about is Jiaoniang. (Wang, 1994) As soon as he hears the news of Jiaoniang's death, Shen determines to die for his love as well. His brother tries to dissuade him by saying, "a true man should have lofty ambitions. You are so young and have achieved such a high mark in the examination that you will certainly advance in your career rapidly. How can you resign yourself to die for a girl's hand? Moreover, there are many beautiful women in the world. Why are you doing this?" Shen's only response is as follows: "It's difficult for me to gain such a beautiful girl!" Shen can banish social and political advancement from his mind in order to achieve his love for Jiaoniang. (Wang, 1994) Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

Under the Ming, The Peony Pavilion, the most famous opera is also one of the greatest love stories. It depicts a love story between two lovers, Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei. They struggle to live their love, overcome all obstacles, fight against death and are finally reunited. The play was an instant success. Within a few years, the play is published in numerous editions. It is read, performed on stage and inspires many imitations. In general, love stories continue to be popular under the Ming, in particular in the southern tradition theater (ch'uan-ch'i).

As Idema writes: 'Although in general any topic is fit for presentation in ch'uan-ch'i, the master-plot is often provided by a melodramatic love story. Some examples of this, as mentioned above, are "Top-Graduate Chang Hsieh," "Story of the Lute," and "The White Hare." A young man and a young woman, either just married or otherwise romantically attached, become separated and after many adventures and tribulations, during which he may acquire other wives but she must remain steadfastly loyal to him alone, eventually are happily reunited.' (Mair, 2012, p. 826) Also, it is striking that the "Four Great Classical Dramas" are all love stories: The Story of the Western Wing and The Peony Pavilion, as well as The Peach Blossom Fan and The Palace of Eternal Life. The Peach Blossom Fan tells the story of the fall of the Ming dynasty through the love story of the young scholar Hou Fangyu and the courtesan Li Xiangjun, while The Palace of Eternal Life recounts the love story of Emperor Tang Xuanzong and his favorite consort, Lady Yang Guifei (a story that was already famous at the time, notably through earlier works, notably The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Bai Juyi and Rain on the Paulownia Tree by Bai Renfu).

During the Ming, plays and operas are not the only genre where love stories flourished. For instance, the theme of a man and a woman exchanging love poems was a perennial favorite in the tales of the period (see for instance The Biography of Juanjuan by the Yang Yi, a love story consisting entirely of poems exchanged between a man and a woman [START_REF] Chang | The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature[END_REF]). Similar romances based on poetic exchanges had already appeared in the classical tales of earlier Ming writers, such as Qu You (1347-1433) and Li Changqi (1376-1451). The taste of the Ming public for this kind of love fiction lead to a boom in the publication of collections of stories. Feng Menglong's (1574-1646) collection of classical tales, entitled The Anatomy of Love, is probably the best known. In total, it is estimated that forty or more romances telling a love story between a handsome and talented young man and an equally talented an beautiful young woman were produced during the Yuan and Ming periods (Huang, 2001, p. 207). [START_REF] Chang | The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature[END_REF]. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature. Cambridge University Press. Huang, M. W. (2001). Desire and fictional narrative in late imperial China (Vol. 202). Harvard Univ Asia Center. Mair, V. H. (2012). The Columbia history of Chinese literature. Columbia University Press.

Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)

During the Qing dynasty, love stories continue to flourish to the point that it is considered as a genre in itself, the 'caizi-jiaren', the 'scholar-beauty' story (Huang, 2001;[START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF]Song, 2004;[START_REF] Starr | Red-light novels of the late Qing[END_REF]. The closest to this ideal-type are Yu Jiao Li, Ping Shan Leng Yan, and Haoqiu zhuan. These stories are very stereotyped. The two main characters are a young man and a young woman who represent the best in intelligence, appearance and moral character.

"They chance to meet and then get to know each other, often through the exchange of literary messages, especially poetry. It becomes spontaneously apparent that they are meant for each other. Mean people try to steal the woman away or otherwise prevent the two from uniting, but they fail because the youths are so much cleverer and virtuous. (…) They match for their own benefit rather than their parents', although ultimately they obtain their parents blessing as well as conform to the ideal that the man should pass the official exam before marrying the woman." (McMahon, 1994, p. 230) Finally, it should be noted that while the most famous novels of the Qing dynasty such as the Dream of the Red Chamber do not belong to the ciazi-jiaren genre, they have been undoubtedly influenced by it, notably through the importance granted to feeling, desire and love (Song, 2004). More importantly, the theme of love (qing) becomes the central topic of the Chinese novel during the Qing dynasty (see for instance Lanselle, 2013 on Kong Shangren's The Peach Blossom Fan).

Here is Daniel Hsieh characterization of the evolution of love during Qing dynasty: 'In one major work of literature after another, the nature of qing is explored and debated: from Tang Xianzu's (1550 -1617) Mudan Ting (The Peony Pavilion), to Hong Sheng's (1645-1704) Changsheng dian (The Palace of Everlasting Youth), to Kong Shangren's Taohua shan (The Peach Blossom Fan) to Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase), and Pu Songling's (1640-1715) Liaozhai zhiyi (Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio). And then comes Cao Xueqin (1715 -1763) and his Honglu meng (Dream of the Red Chamber) with its questioning and its answers. This late masterpiece, the single most important work of literature in Chinese culture, is a kind of love story, or rather, as the author explain, 'a work essentially about qing' (love)". (Hsieh, 2008, p. 2) To conclude, it is clear that, over time, love became increasingly important in the Chinese literature. After sketching a brief history of love in Chinese literature, Hsieh conclude: "Thus an overwhelming patriarchal society that began by virtually ignoring women and love, ended with a kind of obsession with the subjects that would lie at the heart of many of its later masterworks. Early in the tradition, Confucius and the other thinkers were almost silent on these matters (…). By its end this same civilization would produce a literary hero, Jia Baoyu, whose destiny was to experience and understand the world through love. (…) How and why a civilization takes such dramatic turns are questions not easy to answer." (Hsieh, 2008, p. 3) In the case of Chinese literature, it is possible to go further than the mere observation that love stories are increasingly frequent. A range of academic work have indeed compared the level of romantic love across periods. The rest of this section aims at comparing the level of romantic love in love stories across periods in Chinese history. [START_REF] Hsieh | Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction[END_REF]. Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction. Chinese University Press. Huang, M. W. (2001). Desire and fictional narrative in late imperial China (Vol. 202). Harvard Univ Asia Center. Lanselle, R. ( 2013) Ecriture du message amoureux : A partir de l'Eventail aux fleurs de pêchers de Kong Shangren.

Études Chinoises, Association française d'études chinoises, 32 (2), pp.101-140. [START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF]. The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman. Body, Subject, and Power in China, 130, 227. Song, G. (2004). The fragile scholar : Power and masculinity in Chinese culture (Vol. 1). Hong Kong University Press. [START_REF] Starr | Red-light novels of the late Qing[END_REF]. Red-light novels of the late Qing. Brill.

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

Pre-Tang Dynasties and Tang Dynasty

There is a clear increase in the importance of love with the Tang dynasty: '(...) the classical language tales of the Mid-Tang built on the mo tifs of earl ier short fiction with tales of encounters with ghosts, amorous fox-women, and other supernatural beings. In the Mid-Tang, however, we also find stories of purely human romances set in the demimonde, the world of courtesans and kept women. In this gray area between prostitution and legally binding marriage, women often enjoyed relative financial independence and a Iiberty in choice of partners. The existence of mutual choice in relations between the sexes made possible a true culture of romance, for which we begin to find evidence in the late eighth and ninth centuries.' (Owen,199,369) A first comparison can be made between short stories (chanqi) written during the Tang and the few pre-Tang 'love stories' in Sou shenji (In Search of the Supernatural). First, as we have seen in Hypothesis 1, true love stories are very rare. Also, except for one story (Han P'eng) among more than four hundred (Gan et al., 1996), symmetric love does not play an important role.

Even in stories such as 'Dong Yong' or 'Xian Chao' where a heavenly maiden meeting an ordinary man, the emphasis is put on the supernatural. As Daniel Hsieh notes: 'The Weaving Maiden is never described and no hint is given of any emotion between the two.' Hsieh concludes:

'Although love has a place in Six Dynasties zhiguai one should be cautious of overestimating its significance during the period. It would be difficult to speak of any special focus on women and love in zhiguai, they were simply one of a vast variety of odd topics and concerns' (Hsieh, 2008, p. 2).

By contrast, love is central in the Tang narratives:

'A majority of the most ambitious, sophisticated and beloved Tang tales are love stories.

They formed an essential ingredient in the evolution of chuanqi as a genre, and it would only be the slightest of exaggeration to suggest that chuanqi matured and climaxed from the desire to explore these issues.' (Hsieh, 2008, p. 2).

Thus, love is more important in Tang narrative fictions than in older fictions.

Tang fictions are also more romantic in the sense specified in the introduction that 1) reciprocity, 2) attraction (love at first sight), 3) emotional bonding and 4) the priority of love over other needs play more important roles in the plots.

First, whereas earlier literature typically focuses on the feelings of the male lover, Tang literature emphasizes the feelings of both the male and female lovers (hence the reciprocity).

Yue Hong (2010) takes two examples: the Hanshu, which describes Han Wudi's affection for Lady Li, and You Xianku, an early Tang story attributed to Zhang Zhuo (660-732), which portrays an official's erotic encounter with two widows. The first difference, notes Hong, is that 'whereas earlier literature typically focuses on the feelings of the male lover, ninth century literature emphasizes the feelings of both the male and female lovers' (p. 1). (Hong, 2010). By contrast, in Tang literature, the romantic relationships between men and women address the feelings of women as well as men.

'Women are no longer nameless, faceless characters who appear purely in support of the male lead; rather, they themselves become the focus of love tales. (…) Given their particular conditions, interests, and emotions, these women meet new lovers, negotiate with them, and make their own choices. Ninth century love stories are comprised of both lovers' feelings, actions, interactions and negotiations.' (Hong, 2010) Second, Tang fictions emphasize attraction through the importance of female choice.

'While the relationships portrayed in love stories from earlier periods are typically defined by class, those in ninth century stories are increasingly characterized by freedom of choice and the sincere expression of mutual love and respect.' (Hong, 2010)

'Many ninth century love stories, for example, describe a singing girl or a commoner who falls in love with a literatus and initiates an affair with him.' (Hong, 2010) 'In some stories, the importance of a woman's feelings and freedom of choice in affairs of the heart is underscored by concomitant depictions of male anxiety over the possibility of being rejected.' (Hong, 2010) Third, Tang fictions emphasize the importance of emotional attachment (rather than physical attraction). Also, the importance of emotions is visible through the place given to poetry and the expression of feelings. In Shen Yazhi's An Explication of 'The Plaint from the Xiang' for example, a man who completes a young woman's unfinished poem is chosen to become her lover.' That is, his ability to complete her poem is interpreted as sufficient demonstration of his ability to be an understanding lover. (Hong, 2010) Fourth, the priority of love over other more immediate needs is visible through the important given to long-term commitment. Indeed, the question of whether or not lovers live up to their vows is a central concern in Tang stories (Hong, 2010).

To sum up, Tang stories are more romantic in the sense that they give more importance to 1) reciprocity, 2) attraction, 3) emotional bonding and attachment rather than sexual attraction and 4) the priority of love over other needs (love suicide). Another important trait is that while earlier stories (as well as many Tang stories) depict encounters between mortal men and supernatural women (wenren), stories involving mortal women are very few before the Tang dynasty (Hong, 2010;[START_REF] Hsieh | Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction[END_REF]Luo, 2015). The increase in realism may suggest that romantic interactions in real life have become more plausible than before.

Gan, B., DeWoskin, K. J., & Crump, J. I. (1996). In Search of the Supernatural : The Written Record. Stanford University Press. Hong, Y. ( 2010). The discourse of romantic love in ninth century Tang China. PhD thesis Harvard University. [START_REF] Hsieh | Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction[END_REF]. Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction. Chinese University Press. Luo, M. (2015). Literati storytelling in late medieval China. University of Washington Press. Owen, S. (Ed.). ( 1996). An anthology of Chinese literature: beginnings to 1911 (pp. 622-624). New York: WW Norton

Tang dynasty and Song dynasty

Economic development strongly increased between the Tang and the Song (Broadberry et al., 2018;Morris, 2013a). This predicts that love should become more important. This is the case.

Although there are already love stories under the Tang, there are much less romantic than under the Song dynasties. For instance, many scholars have noted that successful love stories, symmetric and monogamous are rare among the Tang [START_REF] Hsieh | Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction[END_REF]Shih, 2015;Song, 2004). Exceptions, like The Tale of Li Wa, are still far from romantic. In this tale, for instance, Zheng first tries to get the affections of Li Wa, a female prostitute in Chang'an and spends all his money on her while neglecting to studying for the imperial examinations. After Zheng can no longer pay the prostitution costs, Li Wa abandons him, and he begins to drown in poverty. While Li Wa finally saves him and help him to pass the examination, it is striking that their love is not powerful enough to prevent the first break of their relationship.

Such an ending contrasts with the more positive ending of Song short stories. For instance, in the story of Lian Jingnü's affair with Chen Yanchen (from the 12th c. collection The Drunken Man's Talk), the two lovers start flirting and exchanging poems. They are finally discovered by their parents who drag them before the local magistrate. But the judge, impressed by the lovers' poetic prowess, orders that they be allowed to marry (Inglis, 2013). In another other story, the two lovers, in spite of their disobedience to the patriarchal authority, end up getting out of it thanks to the blessing of Heaven (Inglis, 2013). In yet another story, the couple is not summoned in front of a magistrate. It is their parents who eventually consent, citing predestiny and Confucian wisdom according to which sexual desire is natural to humankind. (Inglis, 2013) Another difference is that, for the Tang's writers, love and marriage, feelings and duty, seemed rather incompatible. In the Biography of Yingying, the most famous chuanqi, the male protagonist student Zhang finally abandons his love after having passed the exam. While his decision appears strange to later readers, most contemporaries agreed that Zhang did well in leaving Yingying to pursue a career in the capital (Song, 2004).

'In short, the wenren [the literari of the Tang] even at their most celebratory were well aware of the limits of romance. They could not envision a "whole" love, a love that was beautiful, good, and spiritual, that could exist in this world and with their Confucian ideals. (…) In contrast, stories of fantasy meetings with fairies and brief courtesan affairs are innumerable.' (Hsieh, 2008, p. 194) Another striking difference is that, unlike Tang stories that invariably featured love affairs between protagonists of disparate social stature, in Song stories, both lovers are of comparable status, i.e., offspring of the elite, educated, scholar-official class (Inglis, 2013) This equality is status renders the relationship more symmetric and more likely to succeed, hence more romantic.

Finally, one difference is that Tang stories are written exclusively from the male point of view, and thus not symmetric. As Paul Rouzer notes: 'The vast quantity of Tang informal narrative provides a rich source for social history (women's history in particular), but it also continues to illustrate male concerns and provide not so much a mirror for Tang society as a key to male writers' dreams and obsession (Rouzer, 2020, p. 201). Thus, although we now read many Tang stories as 'love stories', they actually are much romantic than they look as, Rouzer notes again, even the most romantic one deal 'prominantly with distinctively lmale concerns' (Rouzer, 2020, p. 216).

Song dynasty and Yuan dynasty

The comparison between Song stories and Yuan's plays shows an increase in romantic love. Shih notes: 'In T'ang literary tales and Sung colloquial stories, the love theme is popular but is generally presented under the guise of moral instruction." (Shih, 2015) Although this does not necessarily diminish the romantic content, this may indicate a higher interest in love per se.

Another indication is the evolution of the Story of Yinging. Although the story became much more romantic during the Song (for instance, the sad ending is replaced by a happy romantic ending), the story line continues to evolve under the Yuan dynasty. For instance, in the Yuan version, it is not student Zhang who wants to leave Yinying to take part in the examination. It is rather Yingying's mother who demands that Zhang succeed in the examination to agree to the couple's marriage. More generally, student Zhang appears more idealized and put in a morally more advantageous position (Song, 2004). Finally, it may be important that one of most clearly romantic story, Jiao Hong ji (Story of Miss Jiao and Miss Hong), that inspired so many reworking during the Ming, appeared during the Yuan, rather than the Song.

Yuan versus Ming dynasties

The same trend toward more romantic stories seems to have go on between the Yuan and the Ming dynasties (Mair, 2012;Song, 2004). For instance, compared to the zaju plays of the Yuan, sex is less present and less salient in the ch'uan-ch'i plays of the Ming (Mair, 2012;Song, 2004). Also, in the great fiction, The Peony Pavillion, there is much more emphasis on passionate love: 'The passion induced by spring in Tu Li-niang is not only so great that it kills her, it is even so great that it makes her reclaim her life from the king of the underworld and return to her earthly existence' (Idema, 2001, p. 828).

Ming plays also seem more symmetric. The female characters become more interesting, and the story is often told from their own point of view as in The Peony Pavilion, the most famous play of the Ming (Huntington, 2001, p. 126;Lee, 2006, p. 43). New romantic features also emerge. For instance, in Chiao Hung chi, an adaptation of a classical tale, the love between the two characters is not 'love at first sight' but develops gradually, suggesting a higher interest in the depiction of intimate feelings (Nienhauser, 1986b, p. 114).

Finally, it must be noted that while, under the Yuan, love stories appear in drama, under the late Ming, it appears in a dominant way, in more conventional elite forms (Wang, 1994).

Huntington, R. ( 2001). The Supernatural. The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. Ed. Victor H. Mair. New York: Columbia UP, 110-131. Idema, W. (2001). Traditional Dramatic Literature. The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, 785-847. Lee, H. (2006). Revolution of the heart : A genealogy of love in China, 1900-1950. Stanford University Press. Mair, V. H. (2012). The Columbia history of Chinese literature. Columbia University Press. Nienhauser, W. H. (1986). The Indiana companion to traditional Chinese literature. Indiana University Press. Song, G. (2004). The fragile scholar : Power and masculinity in Chinese culture (Vol. 1). Hong Kong University Press. Wang, R. G. (1994). The cult of Qing: Romanticism in the late Ming period and in the novel Jiao Hong ji. Ming Studies, 1994(1), 12-55.

Ming versus Qing dynasties

Many scholars have shown that, compared to the Ming, love stories become more symmetric during the early Qing (Huang, 2001;[START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF]Song, 2004;[START_REF] Starr | Red-light novels of the late Qing[END_REF]. This is particularly true in the 'scholar-beauty' (caizi jiaren) stories:

'One of the most prominent features of such works is their portrayal of smart, capable, chaste young women who are equal to and in some cases better than their male counterparts in terms of literary talent, moral fiber, and wit. The woman is so important that the habitual order of 'scholar-beauty' (caizi jiaren), the predominant usage then and now, deserves to be changed to the less common but also acceptable "beauty-scholar".' [START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF] This symmetry is visible in the plot of these stories, in the sexual behavior of the two characters as well as in their expressed opinions:

"They are monogamous and sexually balanced for "man and woman are the same as concerns the great desire" (Dingqing ren). All she wants is for them "to be equal husband and wife" (pingden fuqi). In one work, symmetry of plot development also helps establish that they absolutely match each other; that is, they run into parallel sequences of difficulties that demonstrate their fates are intertwined.' [START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF] Another romantic aspect of Qing love stories is that the two lovers give more importance to long-term traits such as education and personality than to short-term traits such as beauty. They come to know each other through poetry, and it is trough poetry that they establish their own worth (Huang, 2001;[START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF]Song, 2004;[START_REF] Starr | Red-light novels of the late Qing[END_REF].

'In the paradise of caizi stories, true lovers can complete each other's couplets and recognise in the other a skill to match their own.' (C. [START_REF] Starr | Red-light novels of the late Qing[END_REF] More emphasis is also given to the feelings (qing) of the two characters: "sentiment replaces libido" and "refined, internal feelings replace vulgar, external sensations." [START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF].

This shows that what matters is less short-term physical attraction by rather long-term emotional bond:

"Love, or qing, refers not to consuming sexual passion but to the self-evident "meant for each other" quality' [START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF].

'

The chaste couple replaces sex with words: poem, letters, and polite conversation. They end up as zhiji, 'intimate companions' or 'knower-of-each-other's-innermost' [START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF].

While erotic stories abound during the Ming which involve a man with multiple wives, chaste romances, in which sex is absent, become the dominant genre during the Qing and outnumbered erotic stories (Huang, 2001(Huang, , p. 2010)).

Finally, mutual attraction is viewed more positively than during the Ming. Happiness in marriage becomes much more possible:

'In late Ming erotic fiction, lovers also met without go-between or parents' permission but could not marry and thus redeem their illicit involvement; they mostly encountered disastrous endings. In the Qing romance, sex is domesticated by being brought into the sphere of marriage.' [START_REF] Mcmahon | The Classic 'Beauty-Scholar'Romance and the Superiority of the Talented Woman[END_REF].

Thus, the evolution of 'scholar-beauty' stories clearly shows the increase in romantic love in the Chinese culture.

It must be noted the increase in romantic love is visible outside the genre of 'scholar-beauty' stories. The mid-18 th novel Dream of the Red Chamber (aka the Story of the Stone) by Cao Xueqin is probably the most celebrated literary work of the period. Although the plot differs fundamentally from a 'scholar-beauty' story, it nonetheless gives to love a place that is unprecedented in the Chinese literature. Lee (Lee, 2006) remarks that "for the first time, the male-female dyad is placed not on a continuum with, but in opposition to, the parent-child one.

We are probably justified in speaking of a paradigm shift whereby the discourse of qing plays a role rather akin to what scholars have attributed to romantic narratives in early modern Europe." To conclude, Qing love stories surpass all previous stories by their emphasis on romantic bond, long-term attachment and emotional rather than sexual attraction.

COMPARATIVE METHOD BETWEEN SIMILAR STORY LINES

The story of Yingying is probably the best test case for it has received enormous scholarly attraction (Lanselle, 2015;Mair, 2012;Song, 2004;[START_REF] West | Wang Shifu's version does not alter the plot in dramatic manner, yet some change makes it more romantic[END_REF]. The Biography of Yingying is one of the best-known short stories of the Tang. More importantly, it is the original story on which is based one of the most famous literary works of the Chinese literature, namely the play The Story of the Western Wing. Another interesting feature is that some intermediate versions between the Tang tale and the Yuan play have survived (other are no longer extant though). Finally, because The Story of the Western Wing was so highly regarded during Chinese history, it has been commented and edited by later scholars. In particular, the edition of Jin Shengtan, with its important changes and its cut of the fifth and final act, can actually be considered as a version on its own. This version became so famous that it eclipsed the original version and that many readers (including the earliest western translators) became convinced that the fifth act was from another author.

Thus, in the end, there are at least 5 versions of the story of Yingying, spanning eight hundred years:

1. A close comparison of these five versions allows for comparing the relative importance of romantic love in Chinese history.

Another case study could be the reworking of Jiao Hong ji, a Yuan novel (see the summary in Categorical Method/Yuan Dynasty) during the Ming Dynasty. For instance, Meng Chunshun (1600 -1684) wrote an play called Jieyi Yuanyang Zhong Jiao Hong Ji (The Recordof Shen, Jiao and Hon, with chastity and morality at the grave where the two mandarins ducks appear) in which the importance of love seems to be higher than in the original (Wang, 1994). In total, there are nine reworking of Jiao Hong ji from the Ming period, eight written during the late-Ming (Wang, 1994). In itself, this number suggests that HRL were in high demand during this period.

Another case study is The Legend of Dong Yong and Weaving Maiden (Idema, 2009). There are probably other less known cases such as the rewriting of Tang stories in later period (see for Shih Chun-pao's dramatization of Li Wa chuan or Cheng Kuang-tsu's dramatization of Lihun chi) (Levi, 1996, p. 302). However, they have attracted much less attention from scholars and no systematic comparison has been carried out so far by historians of Chinese literature (Idema, 2001, p. 809).

Another possibility would be to study very successful cultural chains in Chinese history such as the stories of Mulan, The Legend of Dong Yong and Weaving Maiden and The Generals of the Yang Family for which there are many versions in literature but also in TV shows and films. But again, to the best of my knowledge, such studies do not exist yet. . (1996). La Chine romanesque. Fictions d'Orient et d'Occident. Mair, V. H. (2012). The Columbia history of Chinese literature. Columbia University Press. Shih, C. (2015). Golden Age of Chinese Drama : Yuan Tsa-Chu. Princeton University Press. Song, G. (2004). The fragile scholar : Power and masculinity in Chinese culture (Vol. 1). Hong Kong University Press. West, S., & Idema, W. (1995). The story of the western wing. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Story lines from Tang dynasty to the Song Dynasty

Scholars of Chinese literature have shown that the evolution of The Story of Yingying parallels the general trend in favor of more romantic stories (Lanselle, 2015;Mair, 2012;Song, 2004;[START_REF] West | Wang Shifu's version does not alter the plot in dramatic manner, yet some change makes it more romantic[END_REF]. In the Tang version, there is no love at first sight. On the contrary, Yingying first rebukes the advance of Zhang. Even if she eventually accepts to sleep with him, we have no explanation about her change in mind, and the reasons behind her actions. Also, there is no happy ending. Zhang goes to the capital for the imperial examination and abandons Yingying

The major turn seems to have occurred under the Song, between versions 2 and 3 when Dong Jieyan changed the ending of the story and replaced it with a happy ending. Moreover, the characterization of Yingying is now well developed: while in the Tang story, Yingying appears unpredictable and unreliable, in the Song story, she is portrayed as a passionate and intelligent but well-educated girl, torn between her emotions and her equally strong sense of morality.

There are also other subtler differences. Compared to the later version, the first versions appear harsh and misogynistic. For instance, the narrator likens Yingying to the femmes fatales of the past who brought down the rulers of antiquity and declares for instance that he has "resolutely suppressed my love" in order to resist her "evil influence." (Mair, 2012(Mair, , p. 1007) By contrast, in the second version, Zhao Lingzhi also seems to condemn the behavior of the male protagonist and put more emphasis on the innocence and suffering of Yingying.

The final two songs clearly censure Zhang for his lack of love and his betrayal of Yingying.

A similar observation can be made for the rewriting of the Tang poem The Lute song (P'i-p'a hsing) into a Yuan zaju Tears on a Blue Gown by Ma Chih-yüan (Shih, 2015, p. 77).

The story line of Yingying continue to become more romantic and symmetric under the Ming dynasty (Lanselle, 2015;Mair, 2012;Song, 2004;[START_REF] West | Wang Shifu's version does not alter the plot in dramatic manner, yet some change makes it more romantic[END_REF]. Chinese readers became increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that Yingying and Zhang had sex before the marriage. The Yuan play is now considered by many as "irreverent" and "light". One of Jin Shengtan's concern was thus to safeguard Yingying from any accusation of indecency. He attempts this by proving that she remains chaste under all circumstances-even when she gives herself to the student Zhang (Lanselle, 2015;[START_REF] West | Wang Shifu's version does not alter the plot in dramatic manner, yet some change makes it more romantic[END_REF] In another Ming version, the author even outdoes Jin Shengtan in preserving Yingying's virginity by having the maid stand for her during the night with Zhang [START_REF] Dong | The Many Faces of Cui Yingying[END_REF]. Song, G. (2004). The fragile scholar : Power and masculinity in Chinese culture (Vol. 1). Hong Kong University Press. West, S., & Idema, W. (1995). The story of the western wing. Berkeley: University of California Press.

ARAB WORLD (400 -1800) LITERARY FICTIONS: TIMELINE AND GENERAL REMARKS

The timeline of Arabic literature starts during the pre-Islamic period (5 th -6 th c.), mostly with poetry (which includes a few narratives such as the Ayyâm al-ʿArab, the 'Battle Days of the Arabs'). Arabic developed during the early Islamic period but really flourished during the Classical Period also called the 'Islamic Golden Age' from the Abbasid Caliphate (750) to the Mongol invasions and the Siege of Baghdad in 1258 (Blachère, 1952;Meisami & Starkey, 1998;[START_REF] Toelle | À la découverte de la littérature arabe: Du VIe siècle à nos jours[END_REF]. From 1228 to 1516, the Arab world experienced a period of decline (though the beginning of the decline of the Arabic literature probably started earlier, as soon as 1150 [START_REF] Allen | The Post-Classical Period: Parameters and Preliminaries[END_REF]). In 1516, the establishment of the Ottoman Empire and the domination of the Turks over the Arab populations lead to a decrease in the production of the Arabic literature until the modern revival in the middle of the 19 th c (although it must be noted that this period is not as well-known as the Classical period, and thousands of manuscripts still need to be studied). Hence, historians of literature distinguish three phases: the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period (500 -750), the Classical period (750-1150) and the postclassical period (1150 -1850) [START_REF] Allen | The Post-Classical Period: Parameters and Preliminaries[END_REF].

Many kinds of narrative fictions were produced, notably the great popular epics such as Sirat Dhi-l-Himma (12 th c.), Sirat 'Antar (12 th c.), Sirat Banu Hilal (14 th c.), Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi-Yazan (15-16 th c.) or Sirat al-Zahir Baibars (16 th c.) [START_REF] Garcin | Lectures du roman de Baybars[END_REF]. Many 'romances' such the romance of 'Umar, the romance of Majnun-Layla, the romance of Qays also existed in oral forms, as plots build around famous poems, and were later recorded by scholars such as Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (Kitab al-Aghani, 'The Book of Songs', 10 th c.) (Blachère, 1952;[START_REF] Miquel | Majnûn et Laylâ[END_REF][START_REF] Vadet | L'esprit courtois en Orient dans les cinq premiers siècles de l'Hégire[END_REF]. A few other texts can be added to this list such as the proto science-fiction novels Risālat Fādil ibn Nātiq (The Treatise of Kamil on the Prophet's Biography) by the polymath Ibn al-Nafis (1213-1288) as well as Opinions of the residents of a splendid city by and Awaj bin Anfaq by Al-Qazwini (1203-1283). The importance of non-religious theatre remains difficult to assess before the 19 th c. [START_REF] Allen | The Post-Classical Period: Parameters and Preliminaries[END_REF]. Finally, while the best-known Arabic narrative fiction is arguably the One Thousand and One Nights, it is ironically of Persian (and probably of Indian) origins, and was not highly ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Compared to Southeast Asia and Persia, economic indicators for the Arab world during the Classical Period are more abundant. Converging data about population growth (McEvedy et al., 1978), energy capture (Morris, 2013a), urbanization rate (Bosker et al., 2013), wages (Pamuk & Shatzmiller, 2014) and GDP per capita (Fouquet & Broadberry, 2015;Pamuk & Shatzmiller, 2014) demonstrate that the Arab world achieved a high level of development during its Golden Age with an urbanization rate of 20 to 30% in Irak in 900 (Bosker et al., 2013) and a GDP per capita of $950 in 720 (Fouquet & Broadberry, 2015;Pamuk & Shatzmiller, 2014), probably higher than any society as this time.

This high level of development contrasts with the earlier periods, notably the pre-Islamic period and the first century of the Islamic period. During these periods, the Arabic culture was limited to the much less developed areas of to the Arabic peninsula. It is only when the Caliph 'Abdal-Malik (around 700) substituted the use of Arabic to the use of Greek and Persian in the administration and when the Abbasid caliphate moved the capital to Bagdad that Arabic started to be the language of the literate elite of the most affluent parts of the Arab Empires (Syria, Irak, Egypt).

The Golden Age also contrasts with the later periods (from the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to the 19 th c.). During this long period of decline, population stagnated (McEvedy et al., 1978). Urbanization declined, from 20% to 10% in Iraq and from 10% to 5,75% in Egypt (Bosker et al., 2013). GDP per capital decreased from $950 in 720 to $700 in 1220 to $600 in 1800 in Irak (Bolt & Van Zanden, 2014;Fouquet & Broadberry, 2015;Pamuk & Shatzmiller, 2014). This decline is also visible in the scientific production (Chaney, 2016) and in the slow adoption of technologies such as the water mill or the crane (Van Bavel et al., 2018). It is notable that the period of decline probably started before the end of the classical period, probably as soon as the 11 th c. (Fouquet & Broadberry, 2015;Morris, 2013a;Pamuk & Shatzmiller, 2014). However, it must be noted that, despite this strong decrease in economic development, the Arab society rea main relatively developed with urbanization over 5%. Bolt, J., & Van Zanden, J. L. (2014). The Maddison Project : Collaborative research on historical national accounts.

The Economic history review, 67 [START_REF]BCE -1800 CE[END_REF], 627-651. Bosker, M., Buringh, E., & van Zanden, J. L. (2013)

Pre-Islamic and early Islamic period

During the 1 st c. of Islam (7 th -8 th c. CE), the Arabic civilization was still limited to the Arab Peninsula and did not include the most developed areas of the Near East such as Syria, Irak and Egypt. We predict that love stories are unlikely to be present during the pre-Islamic period. This is the case. Before the Abbasid Caliphate, the most romantic narratives are what historian of Arabic literature Blachère call tales of the "roosters of the tribes" (Blachère, 1952). Here is an example:

"an irresistibly beautiful teenager plays the game of seducing the girls and women of a neighbouring and hostile group; as a poet, each of his successes is celebrated by him in terms that are as many arrows against the brothers and husbands of the beautiful defenceless ones; the end of the seducer is often tragic, but in the meantime what beautiful opportunities have been given to him to add new -and very particular -glory to that of which his tribe prides itself!" (Blachère, 1952, p. 762).

As can be seen in this summary, the tales of the "roosters of the tribes" are all but romantic. Like the Greek mythology, they are about male conquests rather than about symmetric love.

Historian of Persian medieval literature Julie Meisami agrees with this contrast. She contrasts on the one hand the 'conception of love that is intimately linked with courtly society and courtly ideals' and that is present in the Classical Arab literature and in the Medieval Persan literature 'the obsessive but self-immolating love typical of the 'Udhri poets' that are characteristic of all love poetry. (Meisami, 2014, p. 57) In light of this contrast, one must conclude that romantic love is essentially absent in the archaic Arabic poetry:

Certainly it is absent (or virtually so) from pre-Islamic Arabic poetry; for, however intense, love is doomed by the very nature of tribal life to be ephemeral, and this ephemerality constitutes the primary topic of love poetry. (Meisami, 2014, 43) Moreover, the theme of love is not one of the main themes of the Bedouin poetic world. These themes are the Bedouin virtues such as courage, fidelity, generosity, the spirit of tribal solidarity, and the pride that comes from the nobility of one's ancestors or from one's warlike deeds (Gallais, 1974). In his book on courtly love in Arabic medieval literature, L'esprit courtois en Orient dans les cinq premiers siècles de l'Hégire, Vadet writes that "passionate love is an inappropriate thing among Bedouins, clearly shocking, contrary to morality and, it seems, to the constitution of society" [START_REF] Vadet | L'esprit courtois en Orient dans les cinq premiers siècles de l'Hégire[END_REF]). Vadet thus opposes the pre-Islamic idea of love as negative, hopeless, mad, sick, associated with black magic and the golden age idea of love as courtly, positive, and sophisticated (Gallais, 1974).

One important point needs to be discussed before concluding. The great Arabic love stories, such as Majnun and Layla, Qays and Lubna, and Kuthair and Azza are supposed to have happened in the Arab Peninsula during pre-Islamic period, typically in the 'Udhri tribe, which was widely known for the importance it gave to love. If this was true, then it would be a great counter-example to the association between affluence and romantic love. However, modern scholarship has shown that all the famous love stories of the pre-Islamic periods are late inventions of Abbasid poets (8 th -9 th c., that is two centuries after Muhammad), and that the "courtly" love of 'Udhri poetry was a backward projection of the urban Abbasid culture onto idealized Bedouin origins (Blachère, 1952;Meisami & Starkey, 1998;[START_REF] Vadet | L'esprit courtois en Orient dans les cinq premiers siècles de l'Hégire[END_REF]. This myth of Arab origin then propagated to Western Europe and to the Western educated audience: 'The legend of the 'Benou-Azra', who 'when loving, die', has been introduced into European literature by Stendhal's treatise De l'amour (1822), and inspired Heine's poem 'Der Asra'.' (Jacobi, 1998, p. 790) As Miquel and Kemp write in their study of the myth of Majnun and Layla, the poet Majnun probably never existed. In The Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, Renate Jacobi explains the emergence of this myth:

In the course of the second [century after the Hijra]/eighth century, 'Udhri poets and their beloveds -'Urwa and 'Afra', Jamil and Buthayna, Qays and Lubna, Majnun and Layla, Kuthayyir and 'Azza -were transformed into heroes of romantic stories about chaste lovers, who were separated, but remained faithful and died of sorrow (cf. Blachère,Histoire,. About the same time, the concept of courtly love developed in the intellectual climate of 'Abbāsid urban society was labelled al-hubb al-'udhri and projected back into an idealized bedouin environment. 'Udhri verses, sometimes of dubious authenticity, were quoted in treatises on love theory, and influenced the vocabulary of Sufi poetry. (Jacobi, 1998, p. 790) In fact, the reference to the Bedouin's culture is probably no accident. As Monica Balda-Tillier notes:

With the arrival of Islam and the installation of the Arab aristocracy in the cities of Iraq, one felt the need to develop a morality of love that could find its place in the urbanized and Persianized aristocratic circles, while at the same time seeming to preserve the ancient values of Bedouinity. It was also necessary to justify this conception within the new Islamic values. (Balda-Tillier, 2014, 200) Importantly, the old poems are less romantic than the love stories they inspired. Compared to the pre-Islamic nasib, the 'Udhri poetry is indeed much more romantic than the nasib, its source of inspiration:

'The elegiac and emotional appeal of the nasib are enhanced, for whereas pre-Islamic poets refer to a former love-affair they wish to forget, 'Udhri poets speak of a present love and project their hopes and wishes into the future. They are introspective, absorbed by their longing and desire, imbuing the world and its phenomena with their melancholy feelings. (…) The main elements of 'Udhri love are passionate devotion to one woman, chastity and faithfulness until death. Reflections upon death and the possibility of meeting beyond the grave are leitmotifs of 'Udhri poetry. (Jacobi, 1998, p. 790) In other words, the great Arabic love stories, such as Layla and Majnun, Qays and Lubna, and Kuthair and Azza are late love stories created around pre-existing poems. These love romances are "collective enterprises" (Blachère, 1952) produced by many anonymous poets over several generations. They are often very heterogeneous in quality and style, but all of their components (short narratives, isolated verses) have been transmitted together under the name of the two lovers.

Abbasid Caliphate (Classical period)

Hypothesis 1 predicts that true love stories should only appear during the most developed and urbanized periods of the history of Arabic literature. This is the case. As for other non-modern cultures, it might be useful to give a short summary of one of these stories. Here is a summary of the most standard Arabic versions of Layla and Majnun:

'Qays ibn al-Mulawwah (i.e. Majnun) fell in love with Layla al-Aamiriya. He soon began composing poems about his love for her, mentioning her name often. His unselfconscious efforts to woo the girl caused some locals to call him "Majnun." When he asked for her hand in marriage, her father refused because it would be a scandal for Layla to marry someone considered mentally unbalanced. Soon after, Layla was married to another noble and rich merchant belonging to the Thaqif tribe in Ta'if. He was described as a handsome man with reddish complexion whose name was Ward Althaqafi. The Arabs called him Ward, meaning "rose" in Arabic.

When Majnun heard of her marriage, he fled the tribal camp and began wandering the surrounding desert. His family eventually gave up hope for his return and left food for him in the wilderness. He could sometimes be seen reciting poetry to himself or writing in the sand with a stick. (Wikipedia contributors, 2020)

Although the love story between Layla and Majunun will find its full development in Persian literature, it is nonetheless already a romantic story during the Abbasid period.

Monica [START_REF] Balda-Tillier | Genèse et essor d'un genre littéraire: les traités d'amour dans la littérature arabo-islamique médiévale (IIe/VIIIe-VIIIe/XIVe siècle)[END_REF] suggests that it possible to evaluate the numerical importance of works on love in Arab-Islamic literature during the classical period by using the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadīm (385/995). According to its preface, this book represents the index of all the books written in Arabic that its author saw in the libraries of Baghdad in his time makes. The Fihrist cites 184 lost books which, according to their titles, probably dealt with love. The total of these works represents 2.4% of the 7852 works mentioned by Ibn al-Nadīm. As Balda-Tillier (2000) notes: 'If the Fihrist constitutes a reliable mirror of the Arab-Islamic literary production of the first four centuries of the Hegira, this type of works occupies a relatively important place in the whole of the medieval Arab-Islamic literary production. Indeed, more than one book out of fifty dealt with love.' Figure 4 shows the distribution of romantic work between the Hijri year 101 of (716 CE) and the Hijri year 450 (1058 CE). It is worth noting that the Fihrist mentions only one author for the period before 150/765, in line with the conclusion of the previous section on Pre-Islamic and early Islamic period. Also 71% of all books on love were produced during the Abbasid golden age (from 150/765 to 201/816). Finally, it must be noted that not all these titles refer to literary works in the full sense:

The titles mentioned by Ibn al-Nadīm are all composed of the word kitāb (book), followed by the names of the two lovers. These books were probably "monographs" centered on the story of a couple of lovers. The word kitāb was ambiguous at the time and could indicate a real book as well as a draft notebook used as a memory aid. The hypothesis of a partial and not definitive writing seems to be confirmed by the fact that none of these works have reached us. (Balda-Tellier, 2009) Another case worth of attention is the various erotic risalas such as the Risalat al-tayf (1275) by Baha' al-Din al-Irbili: 'The text tells of the author falling in love for a woman from whom he is first separated and to whom he sends his messenger. Finally, the two meet to enjoy their mutual love, but the text ends with the author waking up from his sleep: the whole incident was

Post-classical period

During the post-classical period (1150 -1850), romantic stories are mostly present in sira, a genre of very long epics, with complicated plots, mixing verse and prose (Reynolds, 2006b). These epics tell the adventures and exploits of various male heroes such as Antar or Baybars or of a cluster of characters such as in Sirat Bani Hilal. Within these epics, love is central. For instance, in Sirat Antar ibn Shaddad, the hero Antar falls in love with 'Abla when he is still a boy and the twists and turns of their courtship and married relationship form one of the main narrative lines of the cycle (Kruk, 2006, p. 297). In fact, the importance of romantic love in siras is so central that historian of Arabic literature Peter Heath write that romantic love is one the three defining features of the genre along with the overcoming of obstacle by a male hero and the presence of Islam. In sira:

'love is always presented as a matter of mutual attraction. Marriage is the result of individual inclination against social odds rather than one of social norms dictating marital results. The only love stories that siras tell are those of successful, mutually agreable romantic relationships, in which men and women are portrayed as emotional equals and full partners.' (Heath, 2006, p. 328) These observations thus fit well with the behavioral characterization of romantic love. This characterization is reinforced by the fact that female characters are far from passive. In Sirat Antar ibn Shaddad, for instance, the wife of the hero Antar, 'Abla, prevents Antar's execution by pretending to consent to marry King Ardashir and then murdering him. She also strangles a woman who tries to lead her into an ambush. Finally, it is worth noting that, just like in Western chivalric romances, moral qualities are important for lovers: 'Many females love interests in siras immediately reject suitors who are strong and handsome but insufficiently good-hearted and noble' (Heath, 2006, p. 328) To finish, it must be noted that many of the tales in the One Thousand and One Nights are also love stories or involve romantic love as a central theme. This includes "Aladdin", "The Ebony Horse", "The Three Apples", "The Tale of Tàj al-Mulúk and the Princess Dunyà: The Lover and the Loved", "Adi bin Zayd and the Princess Hind", "Di'ibil al-Khuza'i With the Lady and Muslim bin al-Walid", "The Three Unfortunate Lovers", and others. However, these tales are much less romantic than the love stories of the classical period: while love is central to the plot, the feelings of the characters are not the focus of the actions (Irwin, 2014). Moreover, the exact timing, place of invention and area of diffusion of particular tales remain unknown. The oldest tales and the frame story are probably of Indian or Persian origins and the latest tales could be as late as the 18 th c. (Irwin, 2014). For instance, the story of Aladdin (as well as many others) was not part of the original Nights collection and has no authentic Arabic source (it was actually incorporated into the book Les Mille et Une Nuits by its French translator, Antoine Galland who got it from a Maronite Syrian scholar from Aleppo that Galland met in Paris in the early 18 th century). It is also notable that the Nights do not seem to have been culturally important in the Arab world before Galland's 'translation ' in French (Reynolds, 2006a). In the end, it may be the case that much of the Nights is the result of a Western adaptations and reinventions of Arabic and Persian tales whose original versions are now lost (Reynolds, 2006a).

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

Pre-Islamic and early Islamic period and Abbasid period

As we have seen before, there are no clear love stories before the Abbasid period (Blachère, 1952;Gallais, 1974;Jacobi, 1998;Meisami, 2014;Meisami & Starkey, 1998;[START_REF] Vadet | L'esprit courtois en Orient dans les cinq premiers siècles de l'Hégire[END_REF].

There is thus no doubt that the importance of romantic increased between the two periods.

It is true that the siras contain romantic love stories. However, although they are important, they are not the focus of the work which is the adventures of the hero (the difference between the two kinds of stories is equivalent in the West to the difference between Tristan and Iseult, and Flore and Blanchefleur on the one side, and Cligès and Yvain, the Knight of the Lion on the other side). One exception is the romance of Bayad and Riyad, which involves a young man who falls in love with the favourite courtesan of the royal chamberlain. The story, however, was not produced in the declining core of the Arab World, but in the dynamic 13th c. Andalusia (Reynolds, 2006). Proper love stories, focused on two characters fighting for their love, only reappear in the late 19 th c. with the Arab renaissance (Nadha) with writers such as Jorge Zaydan for instance (Allen, 1992;Cachia, 2003;Starkey, 2006).

The second point is that post-Classical epics are far from monogamous. Antar, for instance, repeatedly fall in love with other women than his wife.

Time and again he becomes sexually involved with girls and women who cross his path, and it is not beyond him to obtain his wish by force (V, p. 423). He takes great pains to hide his affairs and marriages from 'Abla, anxious to spare her feelings as well as to avoid her nagging. But if the worst comes to the worst, he does not shirk his responsibilities even if he must brave her displeasure by making provisions for unexpectedly discovered illegitimate offspring: as he says to her, it is a man's duty to cover up his faults (VII, pp. 34-5). (Kruk, 2006, p. 298) This is not specific to Antar. As Heath writes 'there is always room for secondary love affairs, especially as a hero's adventures become geographically far-flung' (Heath, 2006, p. 328). Thus, compared to classical romances, the love stories present in the post-Classical epics appear less romantic.

COMPARATIVE METHOD BETWEEN SIMILAR STORY LINES

From Archaic period to the Classical period

As we have seen before, most of the 'courtly romances' of the 8 th to 10 th c. are not based on more archaic story lines but are rather de novo creations (Blachère, 1952a;Meisami & Starkey, 1998;Vadet, 1968a). There is thus no possible comparaison between the Archaic and in the Classical periods.

Granida

Amadis, The English Spanish Lady

Early Medieval period

During the Early medieval period, the Western European literature, either in Latin or in the emerging vernacular languages, is essentially non-narrative or, when narrative, non-fictional (e.g. hagiographies, annals, biblical commentaries, panegyrics). In any case, love is marginal in the fictions of the time. In Latin, courtly poets in France, Germany and Italy wrote about the saints and the kings such as Angilbert in his lost epic on the life of Charlemagne, the anonymous Karolus magnus et Leo papa (also on Charlemagne), the anonymous Waltharius (on the exploits of the Visigothic hero Walter of Aquitaine), the anonymous Gesta Berengarii imperatoris on the career of Berengar of Friuli, King of Italy and Emperor in the 9th c.), Venantius' Vita Marini and the Parisian Abbo Cernuus in his epic De bellis Parisiacae urbis on the Siege of Paris by the Vikings and the deeds of Odo of France.

In vernacular texts, love stories are absent in the old English (e.g. Beowulf) and in the old German literature (e.g. Hildebrandslied) [START_REF] Hasty | Early Germanic literature and culture[END_REF][START_REF] Murdoch | German literature of the early Middle Ages[END_REF]. There is no more love stories in the chanson de gest that appear at the end of the period. In Germany, 'the Waltharius contains several fine sentences between Walter and his betrothed,

Hildegund, but they are not much concerned with the portrayal of inner feelings, and the relationships between the two is strikingly different from that prescribed in the twelfthcentury poems of courtly love.' (Morris, 1987, p. 35) In Spain, the first epic Siete infantes de Lara has been dated from the late 10th c. As its English and German counterparts, it focuses on 'the power of bonds of kinship and of feudal loyalty, the savagery of blood feuds and of military confrontation, and the fragile nature of life itself.' (Gies, 2004, p. 76).

In France, it is possible that early versions of the first epics such as The Song of Roland and Raoul of Cambrai were already in circulation by the late 10th c. [START_REF] Zink | Le moyen age: littérature franca̧ise[END_REF] If this is the case, there are strikingly non-romantic:

The general tone of the epics was one of dignity and formality, and they offered little scope for the portrayal of the more intimate emotions. The women who figured in the earlier epics were apparently those who were admired for their ability to support their husbands and to administer their lands in a crisis; the interest lay in the capable matron rather than in the young beauty. Roland's unfortunate fiancée appears only at the very end of the poem, and her sole function is to lament him inconsolably. (Morris, 1987, p. 34) Gies, D. T. ( 2004). . G. (1996). Medieval Latin : An introduction and bibliographical guide. CUA Press. [START_REF] Morris | The discovery of the individual[END_REF]. The discovery of the individual, 1050-1200 (Vol. 5). University of Toronto Press [START_REF] Murdoch | German literature of the early Middle Ages[END_REF]. German literature of the early Middle Ages (Vol. 2). Camden House. [START_REF] Zink | Le moyen age: littérature franca̧ise[END_REF]. Le moyen age: littérature franca̧ise. Presses universitaires de Nancy.

Central medieval period

As Denis de Rougemont famously noted in Love and the Western World [START_REF] Rougemont | L'Amour et l'Occident[END_REF], love stories emerge in Western Europe in the 12 th and 13 th c. with writers such as Beroul, Thomas of Britain, Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, Rustichello, Gottfried von Strassburg and Eilhart von Oberge, as well with anonymous works such as Floire and Blancheflore and Aucassin and Nicolette (Gaunt & Kay, 2008;Gibbs & Johnson, 2000;Krueger, 2000;Scanlon, 2009;Stanesco & Zink, 1992). One possible exception is Spain.

Although love is clearly an emerging topic in the Central Medieval period in Spain, there is no example of a symmetric and romantic narrative love story before the 14 th c. (Gies, 2004).

Apart from Spain, the rise of love is striking, as medieval historian Colin Morris writes:

'As far as our surviving evidence takes us, there was an enormous explosion of interest in the subject before 1100. An almost complete silence was followed by the beginning of love literature which challenged in quality and surpassed in volume that of any earlier civilization. (Morris, 1987, p. 109) It is worth noting that these first love stories were very popular, as attested by their numerous versions. For instance, the story of Tristan and Iseult inspired writers in France (Beroul, Thomas of Britain, Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes), German (Gottfried von Strassburg),

Late medieval period

The literature of the late medieval period is often neglected by historians of literature, partly because later works are in prose and are often considered of a lower literary value. This may give the impression that romantic love corresponds to a specific period and a specific area, e.g. the Plantagenêt Empire (12 th and 13 th c. England and France). However, the popularity of romantic works actually remained very high [START_REF] Brown-Grant | French romance of the later Middle Ages : Gender, morality, and desire[END_REF] (Stanesco & Zink, 1992). In England, the work of Chaucer, from The Death of Blanche the Duchess to Troilus and Criseydeis, is filled with passionate love [START_REF] Kelly | Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer[END_REF]. although none of them can be considered as Highly Romantic love stories. In Dutch, romantic stories are especially present in theater, in the so-called abele spelen: 'Esmoreit shows how love can overcome incompatibilities in age, religion and rank as well as repair injustice. Gloriant proves that love is able to defeat pride and bring together two lovers separated by distance, religion and a family feud.' (Strietman, 1992, p. 227) Brand, C. P., Brand, P., & Pertile, L. (1999). The Cambridge history of Italian literature. Cambridge University Press.

Early modern period

Love stories continue to enjoy a lot of success during the early modern period. Although the German literature of the time is not well considered today (in contrast to the Later German literature), romantic stories were also written (e.g. Gabriotto und Reinhard 1557, Amoena und Amandus, 1632) (Watanabe-O 'Kelly, 2000). For instance, Ritter Galmy (1539), the first novel of the German writer Wickram tells 'of a simple knight who falls in love with a married Duchess. Both behave virtuously and resist all temptation to adultery until her husband dies.' (Watanabe-O 'Kelly, 2000). As in other European countries, love stories were particularly frequent in theater plays.

Brand, C. P., Brand, P., & Pertile, L. (1999). The Cambridge history of Italian literature. Cambridge University Press. Gies, D. T. (2004). The Cambridge history of Spanish literature. Cambridge University Press. Greiner, F. (2017). Les Amours romanesques de la fin des guerres de religion au temps de L'Astrée (1585de L'Astrée ( -1628) ) Fictions Kelly, H. (2000). The Cambridge history of german literature. Cambridge University Press.

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

Early Medieval period and Central Medieval period

The comparison between the two periods is straightforward. Romantic love was either absent or rather limited in the Early Medieval period [START_REF] Hasty | Early Germanic literature and culture[END_REF][START_REF] Murdoch | German literature of the early Middle Ages[END_REF]. By contrast, it flourished from the 12 th c. on (Gaunt & Kay, 2008;Gibbs & Johnson, 2000;Krueger, 2000;Scanlon, 2009).

Here is what historian of German literature Nigel F. Palmer writes about Germany:

In the Eneide, as in the Arthurian romance, the motif of the expedition to woo a bride is replaced by that of incidental bride-winning in the context of a testing journey. Love now becomes, for the first time, a major psychological theme. It is portrayed in the Eneide as a compulsive force that seizes hold over an individual, potentially destructive, as it is for Dido, and yet also a powerful force for good and for the establishment of political power. The psychological condition of falling in love is accentuated here by the accompanying mythological motifs of the magic kiss and being struck by Amor's golden dart. The mythological apparatus of Venus and Cupid has a symbolic, even metaphorical function, and is closely allied to the tradition of presenting love as a personified figure, such as is later found in Iwein. The state of being in love is rhetorically elaborated in the Eneide, in descriptions, monologues, dialogues and genre scenes, and for the first time in a German context we encounter such 'Ovidian' motifs as love as a sickness, as a wound, going hot and cold, fear of telling the beloved. (Palmer, 1997, p. 55) so often you have put your beautiful hands on this belly and on these hips and felt my body everywhere" (v. 3283-3287); a few lines later, the author gives a languorous description of their kiss "à la française". Amadas and Ydoine's frankly amorous and public behavior is all the more daring as it is displayed before Ydoine's first marriage is cancelled. Jehan and Blonde regularly spend the night together in kisses and "delicious kisses" (Otis-Cour, 2005, p. 280).

Late medieval fictions also seem more symmetric:

In stark contrast to the relative passivity and mediocrity of Enide in Chrétien de Troyes'novel, the heroines of the

Late Medieval period and Early Modern period

The level of romanticism seems to increase again in the Early Modern period. For instance, it is striking that in the medieval literature (as in the ancient literature), love is often triggered by an external phenomenon, either the act of a god, or the drinking of a magic philter. This is not the case anymore in the early modern period, where love becomes an inner feeling that the characters discover inside themselves.

Systematic studies are lacking, but in his survey of French romances during the Renaissance, Greinier notes that, in the French fictions of the 1580s-1620s, the relationship between the two sexes evolved from an ancient representation that made women a passive object of idolatrous worship, to an active role as the subject of desire. The vocabulary itself bears the imprints of this change, since at the same time "reciprocal" and "mutual" became almost obligatory epistles of the words "love" and "affection" (Greiner, 2017).

Daumas (1996) notes that this process takes a long time.

We are still far from that in the 16th century, when Hélisenne de Crenne wrote Les Angoisses douloureuses qui precedent d'amours. Today, such a title would cover the torments of a person who does not dare to declare herself. But Helisenne's heroine ignores this situation: the love at first sight she feels is known to both her friend and her husband. In the first chapter of the novel, her problem is to decide if she should give in to love, not to confess it to herself or to others: love is a foreign fact, not a strange feeling.

Things will be different a century later (Daumas, 1996): "The baroque novel, focused on gesture and action, was followed by the sentimental novel with an interiorize staging of love

Epic: Hellenistic period and Early Modern period

As the Hellenistic epics, many Early Modern epics are highly romantic (e.g. Orlando Furioso, The Faerie Queene). However, to the best of our knowledge, no systematic studied compared the importance of romantic love in the Early Modern period and in the Hellenistic epics.

Epic: Early Roman Empire and Early Medieval period

During the Early modern period, a range of poems were written in the style of the epic of Antiquity, notably with the use of the dactylic hexameters (Roberts, 2001). This is the case of

Epic: Early Roman Empire and Central Medieval period

If genres are defined very strictly as works explicitly sharing the same generic constraints, then the chanson de geste cannot be compared to the Greek and Latin epics. However, Latin epics in dactylic hexameter continued to be written. Some have a historiographic nature such of serious and comic plays was a favorite pastime (Symes 2010: 346). It is in this context that the first known female playwright in world history, and the first named playwright after Seneca, wrote its works. The German canoness Hrotsvitha (c. 935 -973) wrote six plays on the model of Terence, although it is unclear whether her plays were actually played, read aloud or just circulated among readers. Her goal was to respond to Terence and offer plays in which women are chaste, modest and moral. Given low level of economic development in 10 th c. Germany, the limited importance of romantic love in Hrotsvitha's plays is consistent with hypothesis 3.

Comedy: Roman Republic period and Central Medieval period

Unlike other genres of Medieval plays (Miracle plays, Farce), the so-called 'elegiac comedies' (Babio, De tribus puellis, De vetula) written in 12 th and 13 th c. in France were explicitly inspired by the comedies of Plautus and Terence (Symes, 2013). For instance, Geta, by Vitalis of Blois, is a loose adaptation of Plautus' play, Amphitryon. Unlike the Latin models, however, the elegiac comedies are strikingly non-romantic. They are about sexual conquests rather than love (let alone symmetrical love). Since the level of economic development was higher in Central Medieval Europe than in the Roman Empire, this observation is inconsistent with the hypothesis 3.

Comedy: Roman Republic period and Late Medieval period

Besides the religious drama and the popular medieval theater, more erudite dramatic texts, often called 'humanistic comedies', were produced at universities and in humanistic circles, beginning in 14th and 15th c. in Italy (Chevalier, 2013;Rivera, 2014). In principle, the could be compared to Roman comedies, because 'the influence of Roman comedy, especially Terrence, is noticeable in their form and content' (Chevalier, 2013). However, such a comparaison is difficult for both Roman comedies and humanistic comedies contain romanti plot. A proper comparison would thus require a systematic study play by play, which to the best of our knowledge does not exist. Brill.

Comedy: Roman Republic period and Early Modern period

Influenced by the humanist Renaissance, the Early Modern comedies are heavily inspired by the genre of Latin comedies. However, they are clearly more romantic than their predecessor. In Molière, Shakespeare and Lope de Vega's famous comedies, for instance, the feminine characters are much more active: they fall in love, communicate their feelings and take decision, making the plots much more symmetric and romantic. Since the level of economic development was higher in Early Modern Europe than in the Roman Republic, this observation is consistent with the hypothesis 3.

Note that Hellenistic comedies did not survive the medieval period (Menander's works were only recovered in the 20 th c.). Thus, they cannot have influenced the Early modern comedies.

abbot, wrote at least one tragedy that has also disappeared [START_REF] Symes | For instance[END_REF]. Also, John of Garland (1195Garland ( -1272)), an English scholar who taught at the University of Paris and Toulouse, wrote parodic tragedy inspired by Ovid's (lost) Medea. This tragedy 'chronicles the rivalry between two pretty young laundresses who also serve the sexual needs of soldiers in a besieged castle.

When one soldier expresses a preference for the woman who is not his usual partner, the spurned woman kills the pair of lovers in a jealous rage and hides her crime by betraying the castle to the enemy, whose attack results in the death of her own brother.' [START_REF] Symes | For instance[END_REF]. In light of this summary, we may conclude that medieval tragedies, like elegiac comedies, are no more romantic than their Latin models.

Tragedy: Early Roman Empire and Early Modern period

The Moderns were also inspired by the Latin tragedies. In fact, 'the dominance of Seneca is clear, rather surprisingly (to a modern sensibility), this was a preference of esthetic rather than entirely the result of limited access to Greek tragedy.' (Wyles, 2016) In his study of French tragedies, Wyles summarize the key alterations to the Latin model. An increase in romantic love is one of the four key alterations:

(a) enlargement and explication of the text by amplificatio and repetition of key themes;

(b) alteration of the model to give an ethical tone more attractive to an early modern audience and Christianize its meaning (reductio ad christianum); (c) provide a contemporary historical and political dimension for the action; (d) transform it according to schemata derived from newer genres such as stories of tragic love and Petrarchan love lyric. (Wyles, 2016) Compared to Senecan tragedies, the early modern reworkings give to love a much higher place in terms of life pirorities:

The primacy accorded to love leads to a conception of heroism not based on selfimprovement, and if there is a political dimension, it is placed at the service of feelings. In the Troade of Pradon, we see the ethics of greatness disappear, and pride in rank does not go before more human sentiments. Similarly, in Boyer, La Tuillerie, and Dancourt the characters of Agamemnon and Hercules refuse to consider their duties when they loudly affirm their desire to freely love and marry their captives. (Caigny, & Dodson-Robinson, 2016, p. 147) This observation fits well with well-known tragedies from France and England (Caigny, & Dodson-Robinson, 2016). It also fits with less known tragedies from Spain, Holland and

Chanson de geste: Central Medieval period and Late Medieval period

During the Medieval period, the chanson de geste evolved relatively little geste. So the chanson de geste from the Central Medieval period to the Late Medieval period belong to the same genre, and can be compared across period. Although there is no systematic study, Zink note that the increase in the importance of love is the most notable change:

The poems become longer, the plots more complex. Above all, they make more and more room for love and wonder. Huon de Bordeaux in the 13th century is a good example of this evolution. The chanson de geste are thus closer to novels. The end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century saw the appearance of a certain number of hybrid works that fit into the epic mold of the assonanced stanzas -more often in Alexandria than in decasyllabic -, but which by their content belonged to both genres, and sometimes especially to the novelistic genre (Berthe aux Grands Pieds by Adenet le Roi, Florence of Rome, Florence de Rome, La Belle Hélène de Constantinople, Brun de la Montagne). (Zink, 1990, 43) Thus, the evolution of the chanson de geste fits with hypothesis 3. [START_REF] Zink | Le moyen age: littérature franca̧ise[END_REF]. Le moyen age: littérature franca̧ise. Presses universitaires de Nancy.

COMPARATIVE METHOD BETWEEN SIMILAR STORY LINES

Story lines from Archaic Greece to Late Medieval Europe

Boccaccio was also inspired by the Roman de Troie as well as probably by the Historia destructionis Troiae by Guido delle Colonne. Boccaccio, however, 'breathes new life into the old romance genre by shaping a narrative which, differently from his sources, focuses on the emotional effect on Troilo of separation from his beloved, and his despair when he discovers Criseida's betrayal' (Usher, 1996, p. 75). Thus, Boccaccio's version is more romantic than Benoît's:

Unlike the writers in the romance tradition [i.e. Benoît de Sainte Maure], who generally described the events of the war from beginning to end by translating the entirety of their source, Boccaccio drew from Benoît only those sections having to do with the love triangle between Priam's youngest son, Troilus; Cressida, the daughter of the Trojan prophet Calchas; and the Greek hero Diomedes. (…) Indeed all the essential elements of the love triangle in Il Filostrato are present in Benoît's Roman de Troie: Troilus's love of Briseida (later Criseida), Calchas's desertion to the Greeks, Briseida's transfer to Greek control in a prisoner exchange, and her ultimate betrayal of Troilus by falling in love with Diomede. With respect to the plot, Boccaccio's contribution was in selecting the disjointed threads of the pre-existing story and weaving them into a unified whole that had tragic power. (Goldwyn, 2010) Boccaccio eventually inspired Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and, through Chaucer, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.

Another example of rewriting of an Archaic story line is that of the War of Thebe. In Teseida, Boccaccio transformed the story line of the Theban epic cycle into a love story.

'Two Theban warriors, Arcita and Palemone, taken prisoner during the war of Theseus against Thebes, compete for the affections of Emilia, Theseus' sister-in-law. Arcita, Oedipus Rex, Corneille and Dryden add a subplot, a love story: between Theseus and Dirce for Corneille and between Adrastus and Eurydice (Oedipus' daughter) for Dryden (in yet another version, that of Voltaire, a love story between Jocaste and Philoctete is added).

Another to incresae the importance of love is to rework existing relationship and make them morte romantic. For instance, in his rewriting of Oedipus Rex, Dryden increase the level of romanticism in the incestuous relationship between Oedipus and Jocasta:

The very end puts Oedipus' and Jocasta's relationship in the spotlight, a relationship that they have been experiencing with true love and which they do not regret, even though that love is found to be incestuous. (...) Oedipus and Jocasta are often portrayed as two tender lovers, abandoned in each other's arms and ready to declare their love to each other over and over again. (Lauriola, 2017, p. 192) This treatment of the relationship is totally new, as Lauriola notes in her study on the reworkings of Oedipus Rex:

For the first time in an Oedipus' play, Oedipus and Jocasta are portrayed as a couple in love, rather than as merely the royal married couple of Thebes. In this new perspective a particular space is also reserved for Jocasta, a character usually seen and treated as a foil to Oedipus. In Dryden-Lee's adaptation Jocasta is first all a woman in love, rather than a queen or wife; she is ready to do anything for the sake of love. (Lauriola, 2017, p. 193) In the same way, early modern writers rewrite Antigone in a way that makes the relationship between Heamon and Antigone much more romantic. For instance,

Haemon and Antigone's love encounters two powerful enemies, their respective fathers, which is an innovation in this context: the animosity of Oedipus' shadow and Creon's attitude, after his niece's disobedience. Love thus becomes inseparable from death. This version was a case of quick and cross-cutting popularity. (de Fátima Silva, 2017, p. 400)

The same observations could be done for the reworking of Euripides' tragedies such as The Trojan Women [START_REF] Lauriola | Trojan Women[END_REF], Andromache [START_REF] Chong-Gossard | Andromache. In Brill's Companion to the Reception of Euripides[END_REF], Iphigenia in Tauris [START_REF] Mills | Iphigenia in Tauris[END_REF] and Alcestis [START_REF] Roisman | 11 Alcestis[END_REF]. These observations are consistent with the high level of economic development of 18 th c. Europe (especially England) compared to Classical Greece. It is less consistent with the level of economic development of 17 th c. Europe, which was lower than in Classical Greece according to Ober (2016).

Story lines from Roman Republic to Early Modern Europe

We have seen below that Geta, by Vitalis of Blois, is a loose adaptation of Plautus' play, Amphitryon. It does not seem that the medieval version is more romantic than its model [START_REF] Symes | For instance[END_REF]. Symes, C. (2016). Ancient Drama in the Medieval World. A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama, 97-130.

Story lines from Roman Republic to Early Modern Europe

Early Modern comedians used the same basic stories as their Latin predecessors. As we noted in the section of Greek and Latin, romantic love was present in ancient comedies. However, modern comedies put much more emphasis on love. Both men and women characters express their romantic feelings more openly and more often, and love is depicted as more intense. A good example is the comparison between Plautus' Aulularia and Molière's The Miser, a rewriting of the same story. In both cases, a greedy old man tries to arrange a marriage between himself and an attractive young woman who is loved by a younger man. However, while in Molière's play the young lovers both express their mutual affection, in Plautus' play the young girl does not appear on stage and the audience is not aware of her feelings. Even the young man does not openly express his love (it is his slave who speaks of his master's feelings). There is also an additional reciprocal love story in Molière, between the old man's daughter, Elise, and his servant, Valère, and 'nothing but death' can separate them. Since the level of economic development was higher in Early Modern Europe than in the Roman Republic, this observation is consistent with the hypothesis 3. [START_REF] Deist | The Kiss of Ascanius in Vergil's Aeneid, the Roman d'Enéas and Heinrich von Veldeke's Eneide[END_REF][START_REF] Groos | Amor and His Brother Cupid' : The 'Two Loves' in Heinrich von Veldeke's 'Eneit[END_REF].

Story lines from Roman Empire (Latin) to Late Medieval Europe

One exception to this trend is perhaps the rewriting of Pyrasmus and Thisbe, Ovid's famous symmetric love story. While it will be celebrated in the early modern period, several medieval rewritings of the story are less romantic. For instance, in Boccaccio's Decameron, Thisbe is not a young maiden anymore but rather an unfaithful housewife who is falls in love with her neighbor, and communicates with him through a crack in the wall (an anecdote taken directly from Ovid). In John Gower's version, in his Confessio Amantis, Gower altered the story somewhat into a cautionary tale, suggesting a negative view of love [START_REF] Miller | from Roman Empire (Latin) to Early Modern Europe Turning to the early modern period, the trends toward a higher level of romantic love is even clearer than during the medieval period. For instance, the works inspired by the Aeneid clearly go toward an attractor centered on the story of Eneas and Dido (Dido, Queen of Cartage, Dido and Aeneas, Didon, Didone, Didone abbandonata, The Wandering Prince of Troy) or Eneas and Lavinia (Enée and Lavinie) (Martin[END_REF].

Originally, the Arthurian legend was first and foremost about war, raids and revenge in the early medieval times. Arthur was "an exceptional warlord, capable of fighting not only mortals, but also the most feared monsters, and of successfully undertaking journeys into the Other World" [START_REF] Aurell | La légende du roi Arthur[END_REF]. Reddy shows how the early versions of the Arthurian's legend, found for instance in Monmouth's early 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae, display very low level of romantic love.

'According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, for example, Arthur's birth resulted when King Uther Pendragon, at a court gathering, first laid eyes on Igerna, the most beautiful of the wives of his vassals. Geoffrey of Monmouth's text provides no details of Igerna's appearance and says nothing of her behavior, feelings, or intentions. Seeing his extreme lovesickness, the sorcerer Merlin gives Uther certain herbs that will make him look like Igerna's husband, Gorlois. While Uther's forces at-tack Gorlois, Uther makes his way to the castle where Igerna is staying and is admitted into her chamber, where they make love, conceiving Arthur. Gorlois is soon killed in the fighting, and Uther and Igerna are united in marriage.' [START_REF] Reddy | The making of romantic love : Longing and sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, 900-1200 CE[END_REF] 'In another passage of the Historia that seems to presage courtly romance, Arthur sets out to rescue a damsel from a giant. However, in a surprising twist-surprising at least for readers nurtured on the narrative expectations of later romances-the lady is already dead when Arthur arrives. She expired in shock at the giant's first attempt to embrace her; she is survived by an elderly servant, whom the giant now routinely rapes. Arthur kills the giant anyway. His main purpose, it ap-pears, is to encourage his own men, by showing them that not even giants can stand in their way. As these passages suggest, there is no mistaking the Historia Regum Britanniae for a piece of courtly love literature. Obsession with a beautiful woman sometimes derails kings and other leaders. Butexcept for Arthur's birth and the later tournament at his court-love operates only as a distraction to the proper work of men, the work of combat, loyal service, and leadership.' [START_REF] Reddy | The making of romantic love : Longing and sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, 900-1200 CE[END_REF] From the late 12th century on, Arthur became much less of a warrior and love rapidly became a central component of the Arthurian adventures (see in particular [START_REF] Reddy | The making of romantic love : Longing and sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, 900-1200 CE[END_REF] p. 171). This is visible in Wace's Roman de Brut (1155), in some of the Lais of Marie de France (late 12 th c.) and above all in Chrétien de Troye's romances: Erec and Enide, Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, Perceval, the Story of the Grail, and Yvain, the Knight of the Lion. Chrétiens' works were highly popular, which is visible in the many rewriting they generated over the following centuries from Wolfram von Eschenbach's Perzeval in the late 12 th c.to Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur in the late 15 th c. It is striking that in these medieval retelling, all major characters experience love, even Merlin the wizard. In the Prose Merlin (13 th c.), for instance, it is said that Morgan "loves (him) passionately". In the Le Livre d'Artus (13 th c.), it is rather Merlin who goes to live with Morgan [START_REF] Enstone | Wichecraft & Vilaine' : Morgan le Fay in Medieval Arthurian Literature[END_REF].

The main example of reworking of the Arthurian storyline is the story of Tristan and Iseult, which appeared in English and was soon translated, adapted and rewritten in all European literature (Marchello-Nizia, 1995). Importantly, while the importance of romantic love decreased in the least economically developed societies (see section on Norse and East Slavic), it did not decrease in Western European adaptations. Romanticism even increased in early modern versions (on the Spanish Renaissance versions, see Torre, 2015).

The Tristan and Iseult story has Celtic origins. The name of Mark, Tristan and Iseult first appear together, and the story of Tristan and Iseult bears clear resemblances with Celtic tales such as 'Deirdre and Naoise', and 'Finn and Gráinne' since many of the elements of the plot of the latter are already present in the Celtic tales (the magic origin of love, the love triangle with the king, the flight into the forest, the sword that separates the sleeping lovers, the names of the characters, etc. (Cormier, 1976). The story of Tristan and Iseult probably started as a story of the wife (Iseult) of an aged lord (Mark) forcing (with the help of a magic potion) a reluctant warrior under this lord's command (Tristan) to escape with her, just as in some Irish tales such as Finn and Gráinne.

As Pierre Gallais writes:

Remove the geas, make Gráinne a true lover-which she is not (she does nothing to rejoin Diarmaid after he loses her at dice; she does not die on his body, but resigns herself to sharing the old chief's bed)-and, especially, make Diarmaid a lover: we would have something like a sequence from Tristan. (Gallais, 1974, p. 92 the translation is ours)

What the English author of the Estoire de Tristan did was to twist this original plot by focusing the narrative on the love story, rather than on the pursuit.

Finally, it is worthn mentionning that the Celtic stories were re-written during the 'Celtic revival' of the 19 th c. and early 20 th c. Consider for instance Tennyson's rewriting of the story of Enid and Geraint:

'Although Tennyson's poems seem to be quite faithful to the original stories, they nevertheless remain unmistakably Victorian in their moral tone and characterization. Most importantly, whereas the medieval sources concentrated most on male characters and adventure, in Tennyson's poems the centre of gravity seems to be shifted toward female characters, and his Idylls become stories of love.' [START_REF] Setecka | Victorian quest in a medieval romance : Alfred Tennyson's "Enid[END_REF] What is striking is that many of these modern rewritings were done in the name of the 'Celtic tradition', that is the aims of the British writers were not to transform the original tales, but to help them to be better known ('to take the best of the stories' to use Lady Gregory's words). Yet, despite this ambition, they could not help but romanticized their models. on Roland's martial exploit, his relationship with his friend Olivier and his king Charlemagne, and of course his death in battle. Yet, in the late 15 th c., the cultural tradition of Roland evolved toward a higher level of romantic love with Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato (1483) which introduces a love story between Orlando (Roland) and Angelica, the daughter of the king of Cathay [START_REF] Laradji | La légende de Roland: de la genèse française à l'épuisement de la figure du héros en Italie. Editions L'Harmattan[END_REF]Wikipedia contributors, 2020). These adaptations notably contrast with the Norse adaptations such as Roland og Magnus kongen where there is no emphasis on romantic love. Conversely, not all medieval romances keep being read, commented and rewritten during the early Medieval period. In her work on the evolution on the English romance, Helen Cooper notes that only the least romantic ones are progressively abandonned by the early modern English readers:

Alexander and Charlemagne barely make the transition at all, whereas the stories of Arthur, Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Southampton, and an abundance of other heroes who may not have been English but whose romances had become thoroughly naturalized are ubiquitous in the culture. Gawain, Arthur's right-hand man since at least the early twelfth century, remains the favourite knight of the Round Table in the sixteenth; Lancelot, a late French import, comes a long way back in the popularity stakes. (Cooper, 2004) This observation suggests that romantic elements were crucial for the Earl modern readers, and that ancient fictions had less chance to be read if they did not include some romantic elements.

A final case of rewriting consists in the five adaptations (two in English, one in Italian and one in German and one in French -notably by Voltaire,) of the Chinese play The Orphan of Zhao (13 th c.) during the 18 th c. (Hsia, 1988). These are the only adaptation of a Chinese work before the 20 th c. What is interesting is that the European authors were at the same time interested in Chinese culture and unhappy about the original play. For instance, they complained that the Chinese theater does not distinguish between narrative and dramatic forms, the actors always introduce themselves and their roles, and the actors may suddenly begin to sing in the middle of a dialogue (Hsia, 1988). Voltaire, for instance, considered that 'this play is all barbaric compared to the good works of our day' (our translation), although he insisted that the play was written 400 years ago, and that it was clearly superior to any French dramas of the same period.

These adaptations are thus interesting because the European writers did not aim to be faithful to the original, but rather to improve it. And strikingly, one thing that the French and the German versions add to the original are love stories. For instance, in Voltaire's play, Genghis Khan is portrayed as going to Beijing as a beggar and falling in love with a beautiful maiden.

He is rejected and leaves Beijing to conquer the world. He then returns to China, as a monarch. There, he could finally have the woman he loves. He has the right to do so. But he insists in winning her heart. He eventually becomes a wise rule and a real conqueror. In a nutshell, the French writer could not but shaped the original Yuan play according to the psychological preferences of his time (Hsia, 1988). , 2007). Welsh literature develops during the central and late medieval period with the prose tales of the Mabinogion and translations from French romances. However, with the dissolution of the monasteries and the anglicization of the nobility during the Tudor period, the patronage for Welsh poets decreased drastically, and the elites increasingly turned to literature in English, though prose and poetry in Welsh continued to flourish. The low level of economic development predicts that romantic love should be limited in early Welsh literature. This is the case (Evans & Fulton, 2019). The earliest literary works such as Y Gododdin and poetry in the Book of Taliesin such as Preiddeu Annwfn (The Spoils of Annwfn) do not deal with romantic love, but rather with war and the quest of glory. As Helen Fulton writes: 'The genres of court poetry and saga poetry, which dominate Welsh literature throughout the early Middle Ages, repeat elegiac themes of heroic defeat, loss of land, and dispersal of people, while praise poems to great leaders, historical and legendary, attempt to balance the scales in favor of Welsh tenacity and survival. (Evans and Fulton,26) Evans, G., & Fulton, H. (2019). The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature. (Cambridge). Cambridge University Press.

Central and Late Medieval period

Welsh narrative literature was considerably developed during the Central and Late medieval period, with the redaction of the four branches of the Mabinogion and a handful of other tales such as Culhwch and Olwen and Lludd and Llefelys. These prose tales are essentially about the origin, foundation and legitimacy of the royal dynasties of Wales, in relationship with mythological characters. Again, romantic love is largely absent from these stories. Apparent exceptions to this observation, such as the tale of Culhwch and Olwen, clearly demonstrate the low level of romantic love of the Welsh literature. The extant version of Culhwch and Olwen was probably composed c. 1100 (the title is a later invention and does not occur in early manuscripts). It tells the story of how the step-mother of Culhwch puts a curse on him so that he can marry no one except the beautiful Olwen, daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden Pencawr, and how Culhwch went to seek the help of Arthur and his warriors. Far from telling the romantic story of the love of Olwen and Culhwch, the majority of the writing is taken up with the adventures of King Arthur and his men and by two long lists, typical of oral literatures, the first describing the warriors of Arthur and the second all the magical items the giant asks for the hand of his daughter.

It is also worth noting that while the characters of Mark, Tristan and Iseult may be of Welsh origins, the Welsh works mentioning them are not particularly romantic and are closer to the kind of tragic tales or tales of pursuit exemplified by Deirdre and The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinn (see Ireland). The only work centered on Tristan and Iseult, Ystorya Trystan, a Welsh poem probably written in the 14 th or 15 th c., is not a romantic tale (Fulton, 2017;Padel, 2013). As historian of Celtic literature Caitlin Green writes: 'whilst there might thus seem to be a reasonable case for the love-story having been known to Welsh tradition, it has to be said that it does not seem to have been a particularly central part of it.' (Greene, 2009) This suggests that the romantic elements of the story of Tristan and Iseult are not of Welsh origin but were added by Anglo-Norman and French writers sometime in the 12 th c.

The exception to this absence of romantic stories are the chivalric sagas imported from Western Europe into Wales: Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain (which corresponds to Chrétien's Yvain, the Knight of the Lion), Geraint and Enid (Erec and Enide) and Peredur, son of Efrawg (Chrétien's Perceval, the Story of the Grail). We shall see, however, that they are much less romantic than their French models. Furthermore, it is notable that the Welsh adaptations of Chrétien's poems, and other translations of French material into Welsh (such as the Charlemagne legends), did not inspire local productions of love stories (see Old Norse for

Story lines from Central Medieval France to the Welsh Central Medieval period

The Welsh material provides an interesting case of rewriting. As we saw in the discussion of European medieval literature, the Arthurian legendarium originating in Welsh literature had been rewritten by European writers into much more romantic works [START_REF] Bromwich | The Arthur of the Welsh : The Arthurian legend in medieval Welsh literature[END_REF]. In the 14 th c., the Arthur legend came back to Wales through the adaptation of three of Chretien de Troyes's romances

In the case of Welsh romance, the prediction is that, despite their inspiration from French courtly literature, these texts should be less romantic than their continental counterparts, written in a much more affluent country. More importantly, Lindhal shows that the importance of love in marriage is much less important in the Welsh version: 'In the French tale, it is first necessary for the two to fall in love; in the Welsh, however, the Lady's attendant secures the marriage with a practical consideration, as she tells the Lady, 'Thou knowest that thy dominions cannot be defended save by main strength and arms'.' (Lindahl, 2000) In the same way, Susan Aronstein notes that while love was central in the plot of Chrétien's version, it is much less important in the Welsh version: 'In the French tale, this stay [at Arthur's court] thrusts the narrative into an exploration of the problematics of fin' amor and the conflict between private, female love and public, male duty. The Welsh account of Owein's truancy, however, reflects the characteristic Welsh disinterest in matters of the heart, displacing them in favor of an exploration of the perils that beset an unprotected realm. Owein eliminates Chretien's long disquisition on the exchange of two hearts and the maiden's diatribe against the treacherous lover. In the Welsh tale, Owein's deception lies not in abandoning the Lady but in abdicating his duty to the Kingdom of the Fountain.' (Aronstein, 1994) To sum-up, politics matters more than love in Owain.

A similar observation can be made for Geraint and Enid.

'In the case of Gereint, the search for "proper marriage" is about not love but politics, not about the relationship between men and women but about the relationship between ruler and kingdom.' (Aronstein, 1994) 'Thus, the second half of Gereint's narrative is not about the proper function of women nor about love within an essentially homosocial order, as it is in the French tale; rather, it is about the need to prove continually one's right to the woman-here regarded as the symbol of one's right to a subsidiary kingdom. If Gereint cannot hold Enid, he cannot hold her father's kingdom. It is not love or fidelity that is at stake, but prowess and power.' (Aronstein, 1994) The logical consequence of this emphasis on politics is that love becomes of secondary importance in the plot: 'Gereint's emphasis on the politics of this union is further highlighted by the narrative's complete disinterest in the emotions of the hero and heroine. Unlike Chretien, the Welsh narrator does not speculate on the progress of love; on the contrary, most of the events that precede Gereint's wedding revolve around a discussion of politics.' (Aronstein, 1994) Just like Gereint, Enid subscribes to this nonromantic ethos:

'Her role within these adventures, however, is confined to her concern with the wellbeing of her protector and, thus, with her own safety. Here again, the text eliminates the French love theme. Unlike her French counterpart, Enid does not agonize over her conduct or the potential loss of Gereint's love.' She warns him because it is good sense to warn him-for both him and herself-and, in the end, the husband and wife have not substantially changed their attitudes toward one another.' (Aronstein, 1994) To conclude, the Welsh versions of the French medieval romances are in line with our hypothesis: a romantic story written and adapted in a less economically developed society becomes less romantic.

Story lines from Central Medieval England to the Welsh Central Medieval period

Other texts from Western Europe such as Beves of Hampton (Ystorya Bown de Hamtwn) and La Queste del Saint Graal were translated into Welsh. However, to the best of our knowledge, The late Heian period and the beginning of the 'medieval' period (Kamakura) is characterized by a lower level of economlic growth (Farris, 2009) or even economic decline [START_REF] Bassino | [END_REF]. Urbanization and population stagnated, war and conflicts increased, and per capita GDP decreased from $816 in 1150 to $635 in 1280 [START_REF] Bassino | [END_REF]Farris, 2009). The country still remained relatively developed with Kyoto having 100 000 inhabitants and Kamakura 60 000 inhabitants.

Population, GDP per capita and urbanization rose during the medieval period (1185-1600), first slowly during the Kamakura period (Farris, 2009;Souyri, 2013) and then much rapidly during the Muromachi (1333-1568) and the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568-1600). During this period, population more than doubled from 7 to 17 millions while urbanization increased threefold, from 1,5% to 6% [START_REF] Bassino | [END_REF], whith Kyoto reaching 200 000 inhabitants during the 14th c. (i.e. in the same range of Paris, at the same time). Reviewing the economic history of Japan, Bassino et al. note that there was clear development of a commercialized economy with the creation of new markets and towns, improved transportation and monetization, the growth of large cities associated and a number of improvements in agriculture, including the use of more and better tools, the wider use of livestock, the application of fertilizers, the expansion of double-cropping, the introduction of high-yielding Champa rice and improvements in irrigation (Farris, 2009;Souyri, 2013). This high level of economic growth probably leads Japan to be on a part with European countries when it entered in contact with Europe during the 16th century. Donald Keene notes for instance: 'At the beginning of the Tokugawa period, to judge by the reports of European visitors, the level of the material life of the Japanese was higher than that enjoyed in the countries of Europe. The literacy rate was also higher, and European visitors frequently commented on how little misery was to be seen in the cities or the countryside' (Keene, 1999a, p. 22). Recent estimates of numeracy, a good correlated of literacy, suggest that Japan was on a par with the most developed parts of Europe (England and the Netherlands) in 1550 with a level of numeracy around 80% (Baten & Sohn, 2013).

During the Tokugawa period (1600 -1868), Japan was isolated from the rest of the world. Yet, despite the almost absence of international trade and technological contact, population doubled from 17 to 32 millions and urbanization went from 6% to 13% with the size of Tokyo and Osaka rivaling with London or Paris [START_REF] Bassino | [END_REF]. Although GDP per capita seems to have lagged behind western European standards [START_REF] Bassino | [END_REF], economic growth was robust and strong during the whole period, with rising levels of agricultural productivity and a strong development of the market economy (Hanley & Yamamura, 2015).

Living standards (housing, diet, clothing, etc.) also increased importantly. In her review of living standards during the Tokugawa period, Susan B. Hanley concludes that: 'Although the Japanese may have been relatively poor by Victorian standards, the record indicates that they may have been just as healthy; Japanese life expectancy in the nineteenth century was similar to that in the advanced Western industrial nations.' (Hanley, 1991) Importantly, it seems that the fertility transition started as soon as the 18 th c.

'While the economy continued to grow during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the rate of population growth sowed, thus creating throughout the country a rise in from the ensemble, he plays his own, so beautifully that Jōruri sends someone to induce him to join the others. Yoshitsune falls even more deeply in love, and late that night visits Jōruri. He persuades herto yield to him, despite her protestations, but the next morning they must part; it is dangerous for him to linger. Soon afterward, at a place called Fukiage, Yoshitsune falls seriously ill. The god Hachiman appears before Jōruri in the guise of an old man andinforms her of Yoshitsune's plight. She rushes to him, finds him apparently dead, but succeeds in bringing him backto life. He now reveals his identity and promises to meet Jōruri again, but they are fated to remain separated forever.' (Keene, 1999c, p. 235) This love story, and its particular the version known as Jōruri jūnidan sōshi (The Story of Jōruri in Twelve Episodes), attracted so much attention that is was chosen as the first text for the nascent puppet theater and gave it its name, Jōruri (later called Bunraku) (Keene, 1999c, p. 236).

The Story of Yokobue (Muromachi period) is another example of soshi inspired by the Tale of Heike. Although the story is usually labeled as a military tale (its hero, Takiguchi, is a soldier), the original material has in fact been transformed into a very romantic story: 'He falls in love with Yokobue, a lady in the entourage of the Empress Kenreimon'in. His love is reciprocated, and he wishes to marry Yokobue, but his father, pointing out that she comes from an unimportant family, insists that he break all ties with her at once. Unwilling to disobey his father, but unable to dismiss Yokobue, Takiguchi takes Buddhist vows and enters a temple. Yokobue, at first supposing he has deserted her, is heartbroken, but when she discovers he is at a temple she rushes there. She begs for a glimpse of him, but he yields only to the extent of speaking to her briefly from behind a door. In despair, she drowns herself. Takiguchi finds her body and, after burying her ashes, climbs Mount Koya, to live the rest of his life in its silence.' (Keene, 1999a(Keene, , p. 1110) ) In a systematic comparison of the two narratives, [START_REF] Pigeot | Histoire de Yokobue[END_REF] has shown that the shoshi version re-use exactly the same plot but give a much bigger importance to the love story: "The thread of the story is, with very few exceptions, the same; all the important elements have been preserved, nothing seems to have been added. And yet the story is very different. This is because the proportion of the elements, the emphasis placed on one aspect of the anecdote varies considerably. More precisely, while in the five extant versions of the Tale of Heike the love story amounts to 1% to 1,5% of the text, in the soshi versions it amounts to 20% to 25% of the text. A quantitative analysis of the drawings accompanying the different six existing scrolls shows the same bias in favor of the love story. two brothers, creating new characters and adding love stories and romantic feelings (Keene, 1999c, p. 246-248).

Another late case of rewriting is the ghost story of Botan Dōrō (The Peony Lantern). Botan Dōrō is a collection of didactic stories translated in the 17 th century from a book of Chinese ghost stories. The collection was didactic in nature, containing Buddhist moral lessons on karma (Reider, 2001). In 1666, author Asai Ryoi responded to the increasing demand for ghost stories by adapting the more spectacular tales from Jian Deng Xinhua into his own book Otogi Boko (Hand Puppets) (Reider, 2000). Asai removed the Buddhist moral lessons and situated the stories in Japan. The book was immensely successful and gave rise to many imitative works. In 1884, Botan Dōrō was adapted by famous storyteller Encho Sanyutei into a rakugo (a kind of verbal and humourous entertainment). Additional subplots were added, as well as background information on several characters, so as to lengthens the story. The story was then adapted to the kabuki stage in 1892 under the title Kaidan Botan Dōrō. In line with our hypothesis, the late versions (1884, 1892) are much more romantic than the early versions (1666). In the early version, a man falls in love with a woman who happened to be a ghost. He tries to resist to her, but to no avail. He is finally found dead, entwined with a skeleton. By contrast, the late versions are much romantic and more positive. First, the human lover, an elderly widower, becomes a young student. More importantly, the two lovers get to know each other before the female dies and they continue to love each other despite the fact that she has become a ghost. This produces the idea of the love between the two main characters is stronger than death. Eventually, the male character is found dead (as in the early version) but this time, his face radiant and blissful, which totally changes the tone of the story (Wikipedia contributors, 2020a).

These are only few examples, and a more systematic study of Japanese rewriting would be needed. However, these examples suggest a preference during later and more affluent periods for more romantic versions of the same plot. Keene, D. (1999). World within walls : Japanese literature of the pre-modern era, 1600-1867 (Vol. 1). Columbia University Press.

IRELAND (700 -1800) LITERARY FICTIONS: TIMELINE AND GENERAL REMARKS

The Irish literature is one of the oldest of Europe (Mhaonaigh, 2006;T. ó Cathasaigh, 2006). Some of the oldest sagas such Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley) or Serglige Con Culainn (The Wasting Sickness of Cúchulainn) refer to events believed to have occurred in the 1 st century CE and may have been written as early as 700 CE. However, the oldest manuscript containing Irish sagas, Lebor na hUidre (The Book of the Dun Cow), was probably compiled around the turn of the twelfth century, which makes the dating of Irish sagas very difficult. The history of Irish is divided into the following periods based on the linguistic features: Old Irish (c. 8th-10th century); Middle Irish (c. 10th-13th century); Early Modern Irish (c. 13th-18th century); and Modern Irish (c. 18th century to the present day). However, to facilitate comparison with Europe, we used the standard European periodization.

The Irish literature continued to evolve until the late 17 th c. However, with the tightening of English control over Ireland and the suppression of the traditional aristocracy, the literary class lost its patrons and English progressively became the dominant language. they met; -mutual astonishment and admiration concluded in vows of the most passionate love! Naoise, with the aid of his brothers, Ainle and Ardan, stormed the fortress, and carried off his prize; and escaping thence to Scotland, they were there joined in marriage. (Pereira, 2007) In Lady Gregory's story (beginning of the 20 th c.), Naoise falls in love with Deirdre at first sight:

So Naoise turned back and met Deirdre, and Deirdre and Naoise kissed one another three times (…) and he gave Deirdre, there and then, the love that he never gave to living thing, to vision, or to creature, but to herself alone. [START_REF] Gregory | Cuchulain of Muirthemne : The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster[END_REF] The account in the original tale contrasts sharply with Lady Gregory's romantic scene: there, Deirdre is the aggressor, putting Naoise under geasa (bond) to do as she asks:

"Are you rejecting me?" "I am," he said.

Then she rushed at him and caught the two ears of his head. "Two ears of shame and mockery," she said, "if you don't take me with you." "Woman, leave me alone!" he said. "You will do it," she said, binding him. (Kinsella, 2002) In the original tale, not only is love absent, but Naoise does not want to be with Deirdre. It is only because of the geasa that he reluctantly follows her. To conclude, it is clear that the original story of Longes mac nUislenn has been radically transformed over the centuries, from a non romantic story to a romantic story.

What is striking is that in many cases, the rewriting was carried out in perfectly good faith. Consider for instance the 19 th -and 20 th -c. writers of the "Celtic revival," whose aim was to popularize Celtic literature [START_REF] Mccurry | From Domestic Warrior to" Some mild modern housewife" : Lady Gregory's Transformation of the Deirdre Story[END_REF]Mercier, 1987;Oosterhout, 2006;Pereira, 2007).

To do this, they often transformed the tales they wanted to popularize. Here, for instance, is an excerpt of Lady Gregory's "Dedication of the Irish Edition to the People of Kiltartan," written for the first English edition of Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902):

It is what I have tried to do, to take the best of the stories, or whatever parts of each will fit best one another, and in that way to give a fair account of Cuchulain's life and death. I left out a good deal I thought you would not care about for one reason or another…. (Mercier, 1987) This is immediately followed by Yeats' famous preface, which begins:

I think this book is the best that has come out of Ireland in my time. Perhaps I should say that it is the best book that has ever come out of Ireland; for the stories which it tells are a chief part of Ireland's gift to the imagination of the world -and it tells them perfectly for the first time. Translators from the Irish have hitherto retold one story or the other from some one version.... But few of the stories really begin to exist until somebody has taken the best bits out of many manuscripts. Sometimes, as in Lady Gregory's version of Deirdre, a dozen manuscripts have to give their best before the beads are ready for the necklace. (Mercier, 1987)

Central Medieval period

During the Central Medieval period, new Irish tales continued to be produced stories (Mhaonaigh, 2006;T. ó Cathasaigh, 2006) and, again, HRL stories are absent. Historians notes for instance 'the almost obsessive concern of medieval Irish writers with kingship' (Kim McCone, cited in T. ó Cathasaigh, 2006). In the same way, it must be noted that the reworking of the tale of Deirdre omit altogether the potential romantic aspects of the tale (Mhaonaigh, 2006;Pereira, 2007).

Again, some stories from the Central Medieval period may appear romantic. Consider for instance the apparent 'romantic stories' of Cú Chulainn, an Irish mythological hero who appears in the stories of the Ulster Cycle. Superficially, some of the stories involving Cú Chulainn could appear to be romantic stories. "The Wooing of Emer" (Tochmarc Emire) for instance, tells how, in Cú Chulainn's youth, he was so beautiful that the Ulstermen worry that, without a wife of his own, he would steal their wives and steal their daughters. They searched all over Ireland to find him the best wife. But Cú Chulainn only wanted Emer, the daughter of Forgall Monach. However, Forgall did not want to give his daughter to Cú Chulainn. Forgall proposed to Cú Chulainn to go train with the renowned warrior-woman Scáthach in Scotland His idea was that the training would be too hard and that he will be killed. Of course, Cú Chulainn eventually succeeded and married Emer.

Although getting Emer is the impetus of the story, romantic love is seldom present in Tochmarc Emire. Here is how Raymond Cormier, historian of Celtic literature summarizes the tale:

'They meet, and after an extended exchange of obscurely metaphorical riddles, Emer claims to be the paragon of Irish womanhood and questions Cui Chulainn's prowess. Yet, obviously pleased with her, Cui Chulainn compliments the "noble yoke" of Emer's bosom, which only evokes from her a series of specific tasks he must perform to possess that bosom.'

The wooing-scene is not a scene of 'love at first sight' but rather a way for each character to check whether they will associate themselves with someone worthy of their status. In other words, the "wooing of Emer" is about getting a wife rather than marrying one's love. And indeed, the rest of the tale is not about two lovers trying to live their love story but rather about Cú Chulainn's exploits: 'Emer's father objects to the engagement with this "madman of Emain Macha " and intimidates him on several occasions. The second portion of the tale forms a vague sort of initiation called Cut Chulainn's Education at Arms, during which he studies the arts of warfare with an exacting instructress, Scathach. A subsequent episode deals with the deliverance by Cu Chulainn of the young, shape-shifting Dervorgil from the Fomorians, to whom she was to be given as a tribute. Finally, upon returning to Forgall's rath, the hero performs in rapid succession the feats which were earlier prescribed by Emer in order to possess her, and which end in Forgall's death.'

In another work, "The Wasting-Sickness " (Serglige Con Culainn), Cú Chulainn falls in love with a fairy, Fand, wife of Manannán mac Lir. Her husband has left her and she has been attacked by three monsters who want to control the Irish Sea. Cú Chulainn agrees to help defend her but at the condition that she will marry him. She agrees reluctantly but she eventually fall in love with him when they meet. Emer, Cú Chulainn 's wife, tries to kill her rival. However, when she sees the intensity of Fand's love for Cú Chulainn she decides to let her loves him. Moved by Emer's magnanimity, Fand eventually decides to return to her own husband. In the end, Cú Chulainn and Fand drink a potion to forget what happened and not to meet again. [START_REF] Cormier | Cú Chulainn and Yvain : The Love Hero in Early Irish and Old French Literature[END_REF] compared systematically the love adventures of Cú Chulainn and Yvain, a hero of courtly romances inspired by the Celtic tradition. Despite the similarity of their Celtic background, the psychology of the two heroes are strikingly different. In contrast to Yvain, 'Only through careless generalization could one argue for the view that "The Wooing of Emer" plus "The Wasting-Sickness of Cui Chulainn" provided a "scenario" for Yvain.' [START_REF] Cormier | Cú Chulainn and Yvain : The Love Hero in Early Irish and Old French Literature[END_REF] In contrast with Yvain who is in love with the Laudine, the Lady of the Fountain and who will try to marry her, Cui Chulainn eventually rejects or abandons all of his otherworld's mates (Uathach, Aife, Dervorgil, Fand):

"in this sense, he is acting out his primary commitment to the world of men. The Otherworld is a place of adventure and instruction for him, but it is also a realm which distracts him from the mortal world. It is the mortal world alone which will offer him the challenge he desires and the opportunity for the fame he seeks in exchange for a brief life. No true epic hero should be distracted by love or detained by women." [START_REF] Cormier | Cú Chulainn and Yvain : The Love Hero in Early Irish and Old French Literature[END_REF] Another difference is that Yvain is very concerned by his fault toward Laudine. Laudine had accepted to let Yvain go on chivalric adventures but had demanded that he return after one year. However, he became so absorbed in his quest that he forgot to return to his wife, and she eventually rejected him. By contrast, Cui Chulainn's does not express in any way concern about his infidelity to Emer-in spite of her complaints to him about her dishonor from it.

Cormier concludes about Cú Chulainn:

"He is fundamentally a heroic character about whom much remains inexplicable. He is not in any sense a romantic lover. He is more akin to Achilles, to Beowulf, even to

Late Medieval period

The Late Medieval period sees the development of new genre of fiction, notably what historians of Irish literature call 'romantic tales', that is the retelling of ancient fictions in a new way, often more dramatic (Hollo, 2006). This new development could be due to the influence of the Western European literary tradition as tales from continental and English sources were known and disseminated in Ireland during this period. Some English romances such as Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hamptoun are even translated and adapted in Irish.

Despite their names, these 'romantic tales' are not necessary romantic. They are romantic in the sense that they are close to romance, that is 'rambling episodic stories of battle and magic, sometimes loosely unified by a quest theme' (Alan Bruford, cited in T. ó Cathasaigh, 2006).

One of these tales, Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne, The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne, has often been seen as a love story (references to the elopement of Diarmaid and Gra inne exist from the 10th and 11th c. but the tale was probably expanded and developped in the 14th c.). Again, at first sight, it seems to be a love story: Gráinne is engaged with the aged Finn, but she prefers the younger Diarmuid. They flee together. Finn and his men hunt the two lovers and eventually kill Diarmuid.

In essence, the story appears to be not very different from that of Tristan and Iseult. However, a close reading of the story clearly shows that the resemblance is superficial, and that love is not central to the plot. First of all, romantic feelings are absent:

Although Diarmaid and Gráinne do indeed eventually become lovers in the technical sense, we have no indication of tenderness between them, no inner analyses of motives. Diarmaid simply resents Grainne's menacing demands (by means of the geasa) to take her away from Fionn. He also resents having to leave his companions. And, of course, he is reluctant to break faith with his overlord, Fionn. In fact, the couple communicates only when necessary and treats each other with some diffidence (up to a point) during the exile. (Cormier, 1976, p. 595) Also, it is worth noting that this is not a story of love at first sight. Like Naoise in Longes mac nUislenn (see below), Diarmuid is reluctant to flee with Gráinne, and only does so to avoid losing his honor:

Diarmaid is the reluctant, pusillanimous, unlover-like lover, unwillingly forced to carry off the devastating Gráinne, a kind of Irish Helen of Troy. Once he realizes, it seems, that a continued conflict with Fionn is inevitable and that he cannot avert his fate, Diarmaid submits in the end…. There is, then, no idealized, mutual enchantment here, nor any suggestion of partage, as in the Tristan. (Cormier, 1976, p. 595) Central Medieval period (English) Central medieval period Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick Increase Unknown

From Early Medieval Ireland to Early modern Ireland

Many Early Irish tales were reworked in later period. However, most of them are still waiting to be studied (Mhaonaigh, 2006;T. ó Cathasaigh, 2006). In a comprehensive study, Lucie Pereira has compared all the literary versions from the original 9 th c. tale to the 20 th c. poems (Pereira, 2007). The level of romantic love does not evolve during the Medieval period. begins to change in the 16 th century with Geoffrey Keating (also named Seathrún Céitinn, ca. 1569 -ca. 1644). Although Keating's aim was to be as faithful as possible to the original (his aim was to highlight the literary treasures of Ireland), he could not help but change the story to fit the preferences of his audience. For instance, he removed many pagan aspects of the story (e.g. the marriage taboos), as well as behaviors such as the men's heavy drinking and Deirdre's suicide that would have made the Irish heroes appear immoral and dissolute to his readership.

More importantly for this study, Keating altered the original story to make it far more romantic. For instance, he removed the first encounter between Deirdre and Naoise, for it was too openly sexual, and based on physical attraction. Here is the original version:

"That is a fine heifer going by," he said. "As well it might," she said. "The heifers grow big where there are no bulls." "You have the bull of this province all to yourself," he said, "the king of Ulster." "Of the two," she said, "I'd pick a game young bull like you." (Kinsella, 2002) Keating made other changes. His Deirdre became a "Lady," raised in some "dwelling apart" (Pereira, 2007). She is chaste, which contrasts with the indecent girl in Longes mac nUislenn who seeing that "Noisiu was out there alone... slipped out quickly to him" (Kinsella, 2002) and exchanged daring words with him before pulling his ears. In the same way, although Deirdre confesses her amorous feelings for him, in Keating's version it is Naoise, the man, who takes the first step. Pereira concludes: "Keating thereby gives a conventional form to the whole seduction scene that is no doubt more influenced by medieval romance and chivalric literature than the Celtic tradition on which the legend is based." (Pereira, 2007) The subsequent versions are even more romantic. In O'Connor's version (1723), Deirdre is imprisoned "in a Tower well-fortified, (...) almost inaccessible" and "strictly guarded" (Pereira, 2007). This more elaborate setting renders Naoise's venture all the more heroic, as "the Enterprise was of the utmost Danger" (Pereira, 2007). The story is thereby given a more romantic flavor, with the young girl in her lonely tower awaiting the arrival of her courageous knight. The most striking alteration is probably in Naoise's readiness, despite the utmost danger, to deliver Deirdre "or die in the Attempt" whereas Keating's Naoise, like the hero of Longes mac nUislenn, had followed Deirdre "with reluctance, as he feared Conchubhar."

Moreover, O'Connor strives to provide psychological motives which were lacking in Keating's version and which did not form part of the primary medieval tale. For instance, on their first encounter, Naoise and Deirdre discuss her liberation: "after many Endearments and solemn Protestations of Love, she entreated that he would deliver her from Confinement, and remove her out of the Castle." (Pereira, 2007) The same concern underlies his attempt to account for Deirdre's sudden vision of the man she desires after she sees a raven drinking the A man's control of a woman's mind and love is never a given, even for such a man as Óðinn. ( 27)

The romantic stories of the Norse gods and giants, just like the romantic stories of the Greek gods, are thus more about status and lust, than about romantic love.

In contrast to the mythologic poems, the heroic poems tell stories about lengendary Norse people. Here, again, we find apaprently romantic stories such as the story of story of Sigurðr and Gudrún. Yet, again, romantic love is limited in the relationships between men and women.

Fearlessness and (rash) boldness is valued more highly than being in touch with one's emotions and paying court to women.

Love is won not by flirtation, but by fulfilling heroic ideals such as courage and lust for battle. Sigurðr differs from his sworn brother and brother-in-law Gunnarr in his utter fearlessness. Heroic qualities are nevertheless most obvious when viewed from a woman's perspective.

Romantic relationship and women's love are valued to the extent they allow men to display their power and social status. As Bandlien notes, the love of a woman is a direct consequence of the status of a man:

Women's support and love spring from 'objective' norms for heroic behaviour. Their love is always directed to the best man. The heroes themselves are not very demonstrative of their feelings for the opposite sex. (…) Love is almost a social imperative in the sense that women must love the best man. Brynhildr wanted Gunnarr as long as she believed it was he who had ridden through the flame. Guðrún was happy with Atli until he betrayed her brothers. When faith in a man's heroic qualities fails, the woman's regard vanishes likewise. As in the mythological poems, men's status is linked to women's love and loyalty.

The marriages are a confirmation that their qualities as good warriors are appreciated; they had earned the estates, women, and social position they now received. Sverris saga is less concerned about what the widows felt about their new husbands; it was fundamental to the warrior ideal that a woman had to love the best warrior, even if he had killed her father or husband.

To conclude, there is no romantic love story in the narrative literature of the Early Medieval period in the sense defined in this study. [START_REF] Bandlien | Strategies of passion : Love and marriage in medieval Iceland and Norway[END_REF]. Strategies of passion : Love and marriage in medieval Iceland and Norway (Vol. 6). Brepols Pub.

Central and Late Medieval period

The famous Norse saga were mostly written in the 13 th and 14 th c. Despite their focus on individual interactions, no saga is organized or focused on a single love story. Some sagas tell the story of men competing for the same woman, or of a daughter disagreeing with her father about whom to marry, but 'in contrast to the medieval French romances, which are centrally concerned with defining the nature and effects and obligations of love' the sagas are centered 'have feud and honor as their controlling themes' [START_REF] Cook | Gunnarr and Hallgerðr : A Failed Romance. n Wolf & Dezin, Romance and love in late medieval and early modern Iceland[END_REF].

The love stories in the sagas-between Kjartan and Guðrún in Laxdoela saga, Gunnlaugr and Helga in Gunnlaugs saga, Kormákr and Steingerðr in Kormáks saga, to take some of the best known examples-appear mute and truncated in comparison with the fulsome treatment of love and emotions in the French romances, with their extensive authorial comments and internal monologues and direct expressions of love. [START_REF] Cook | Gunnarr and Hallgerðr : A Failed Romance. n Wolf & Dezin, Romance and love in late medieval and early modern Iceland[END_REF].

Historian of Norse literature Régis Boyer also observes:

'an Icelandic saga is never centered on a passionate love, even if it can play a significant role in the economy of the whole saga' (Boyer, 1995(Boyer, , p. 1521) ) More recent scholarship has tended to draw more parallels between saga and Western medieval works, noting the occurrence of love at first sight, death from lovesickness and qualifying some sagas as 'native romance' and 'indigeneous romance' [START_REF] Kalinke | Bridal-quest romance in medieval Iceland[END_REF][START_REF] Wolf | Romance and Love in Late Medieval and Early Modern Iceland : Essays in Honor of Marianne Kalinke[END_REF]. For instance, (Sävborg, 2007) has given a thorough analysis of how the love between Kjartan and Guðrún (in Laxdoela saga) showing that their love is presented as mutual and strong, and that it plays a fundamental role in the saga's plot, initiating its central feud.

Kormaks saga is probably the best example. As Margrét Eggertsdóttir notes:

Love affairs are certainly important in many of the Íslendingasögur, but Kormaks saga differs from such well-known Sagas of Icelanders as Njáls saga and Laxdoela saga in that Kormakr's feelings for the female character are clear to the audience. Moreover, in other sagas, different issues are intertwined with the love affairs, whereas in Kormaks saga the love affair stands alone as the central thread.

There is also a narrative tension seems to lie between love and duty, as in many romantic stories :

What makes Kormaks saga both difficult to understand and yet fascinating is that it is told from two points of view. One is the viewpoint of love, which justifies lovers' actions. The other is the viewpoint of society, which prioritizes prestige and honor.

Another striking feature of Kormaks saga is that the female character is an extremely active participant in events throughout the saga. When her brother-in-law fights a duel with Kormakr, "Steingerd said she wished to go to the duel, and that was what happened" She also expresses her love through poetry: 'When Kormakr recites a half-verse in which he asks Steingersur whom she would choose for a husband. She completes the verse by replying that she would choose him, even if he were blind, for then the gods and the fates would treat her well.'

Several narrative devices suggest that the interest for pair-bonding is what motives the attention of the audience. For instance, the narrator awakens the reader's/listener's curiosity: with sentence like "As a result of these events Steingerd conceived a dislike for Bersi and wished to divorce him". As Eggertsdóttir notes, the reader/listener cannot help but think: 'Is 'Whereas 'courtly' love is, at most, a superficial and occasional embellishment (…) misogyny underpins the riddarsogur to the extent that Glauser (one commentator) ranges women with trolls and bersekers as inimical forces in need of the hero's subjugating hand.' (Barnes, 2000, p. 268) 'Women function principally in the riddarsogur not as the object of love but as the powerful and often misogamous begetters of the hero's heir.' (Barnes, 2000, p. 268) In other words, the Icelandic rewritings are not about pursuing love but about getting a bride and founding a dynasty:

"marriage is not the consummation of idealized desire (…) but the means of acquiring political and dynastic power." (Barnes, 2000, p. 268) 'The underlying agenda here is a concern with family inheritance (…). Although the heroes of the twelfth-century French romance tend to be childless, Erex saga and Flores saga ok Blantiflur do not conclude before the hero's kingdom has passed the succeeding generation.' (Barnes, 2000, p. 277) In line with our hypothesis, the ethos of the characters is much more materialistic and rewardoriented than the ethos of the courtly knights:

'The ultimate concern of the riddarasogur, which demonstrate a love for the showy externals of chivalry but little understanding of its ethos, are the establishment of royal dynasties and the extension of estates. In this materialistic 'might is right' context the chivalric and heroic ideal of altruism is transformed into egocentric ethic, where the goal is domination: sexual, martial, and political.' (Barnes, 2000, p. 268) 282

One way to illustrate this contrast is to compare the French and the Norse version of story of Tristan and Iseult. This story was first translated in Norse in the 13 th century Brother Róbert and it enjoyed a great popularity throughout the 14 th and 15 th century in Iceland (Boyer, 1995). Róbert's translation, Tristrams saga ok Isöndar, is half the size of the original. This is partly due to the fact that he has omitted much of the passages dealing with feelings, love and despair (Boyer, 1995;Leach, 1921). What interests Róbert and his audience are the actions of Tristan, his fights against Mark and his feats rather than his doubt about whether he should pursue his passion for Iseult (Boyer, 1995). Moreover, as Barnes notes, the delight in the satisfaction of the lovers' desire, emphasized in Thomas' version, is replaced by 'their reluctance to surrender to the irresistible force of passion and its likely unhappy result' (Barnes, 2011, p. 62).

The Tristan story was later reworked into the Saga af Tristram ok Ísodd (14th c.). This reworking is closer to the 'indigenous literary and cultural norms' (Kalinke, 2011) of Iceland.

For instance, the saga does not end with the tragic death of the lovers, and it tells the fate of Tristram's son and Tristram grandchilden. As Barnes notes, this is typical of Norse literarture and it expresses the Icelanders' interest in genealogy (Barnes, 1999, 389). Another striking difference is that Tristram himself ends his adulterous liaison with Ísodd because he places service to his uncle above his love for Ísodd. As [START_REF] Lurkhur | Redefining gender through the arena of the male body: The reception of Thomas's Tristan in the Old French "Le Chevalier de la Charette" and the Old Icelandic "Saga af Tristram ok Ísodd[END_REF] argues 'the main thrust of the narrative tension is directed towards the relationship between Tristram and his uncle rather than to Tristram and the queen' (p. 207). 'The value placed on family loyalty in Tristram ok Ísodd prevails to such an extent that the relationship between Tristram and his uncle Mórodd outweighs the relationship between Tristram and Ísodd' (p. 300). This emphasis on the relationship between Tristram and his uncle, and the focus on loyalty rather than on love, bears ressemblance with the Irish and Welsh tales of the Early Medieval period (see Ireland and Wales)

In another study, Rikhardsdottir (2012) compared Chretien de Troyes's Le Chevalier au Lion with its Old Norse version. As she shows, the Norse writer did change the narration in a direction that gives less importance to love:

The most drastic alteration and the one which most significantly alters the thematic conceptualisation of the French text is, however, the omission of the scene at the court with the knights and the ladies gathering to exchange stories of adventure and love and the accompanying narratorial commentary upon the past and present nature and role of Love. In Chrétien's Yvain the scene is very much in accord with the image of courtly splendour, and it is completely eliminated in the Norse text, which states simply that 'folkít var sem gladazst' (the people were as happy as possible). There is no mention of knights or ladies and, most importantly, no reference to love, which is the incentive for the narrator's commentary on the topic of Love in the French text. The entire elaboration on Love is omitted, which shifts the thematic foundation of the story from the dilemma of knightly duties of love and honour to that of the adventure and hence the narrative process itself. (Rikhardsdottir, 2012, 91) Another alteration is the long interior monologue of Yvain, who is consumed with love for Laudine. This monologue is omitted and the scene of Íven falling in love with the Lady is paraphrased in a few lines with very little emotional investment. As Rikhardsdottir, this significantly alters the narration and the focus of the story:

By altering the original conception of narrative units, the translator is able to enforce his own structure upon the adopted material, thereby shifting the focus to what one assumes must have been of interest to him (or his intended public), that is, the adventures and tribulations of Íven the knight. The philosophical subtext of Chrétien is transformed as the focus moves from the moral and psychological tenets of Love and knightly duties to the action and events of the story. (Rikhardsdottir, 2012, 92) It is important to note that these conclusions are disputed by more recent scholarship. The reasons is that we ofdten do not have access to the original texts. Both Erex saga and Tristrams saga are preserved in full only in very late Icelandic redactions (from the 17 th and 18 th century respectively), which do not tell much about the 13 th century Norwegian translations. However, in both cases there also exist earlier, medieval, fragments, and they are very much closer to the original text (Kalinke, 2011). When we look at the translations of continental love stories which are actually preserved in Norwegian medieval manuscripts, we get a completely different picture (Sävborg, personnal communication). For instance, the oldest of these manuscripts, the Norwegian translation of Pamphilus de amore, from c. 1250, is not abbreviated at all and nothing of its very romantic love is omitted (Sävborg, 2007, p. 215-272). In general, a more recent scholarship tends to suggest that the Norwegian translators generally are quite close to the originals, not least regarding the treatment of love [START_REF] Cook | Concepts of Love in the Lais and in their Norse Counterparts[END_REF][START_REF] Fairise | Francia et Germania. Studies in Strengleikar and Þiðreks saga af Bern[END_REF]. In a study of the translation of Marie of France's Lais, Robert Cook effectively demonstrates that these translations into Old Norse show a clear desire "to transpose the chivalric and amorous ideology of the French poems accurately" and that the translator "understood and respected his original [texts], and tried to convey their spirit to his Norwegian audience.

The low level of development of the East Slavic area suggests that love stories should be absent up until the take-off of the Russian economy in the 18 th c. This is indeed the case, notably in the most well-known texts such as The Tale of Igor's Campaign (12 th c.) or Life of Alexander Nevsky (13-14 th c.). The larger corpus of byliny confirms this observation. The byliny tell stories typical of archaic societies, centered on a powerful hero whose aim is to overcome evil protagonists [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]Moser, 1992). Here is how literary historian Susana Torres Prieto summarize the typical byliny story:

"The motives for starting his trip, or his quest, are usually two: the defence of the Motherland (sic) and the search for a bride. (…) The strength of the bogatyr relied on three elements: the strength of the bogatyr himself, the special qualities of his horse and the wonderful attributes of his weapons. (…) There seem to be three main types of antagonists in the byliny: supernatural beings, foreign enemies and women." (Torres Prieto, 2011) This makes East Slavic epic closer to the archaic Greek or Irish epics than to the western European romances:

"If analysed from the point of view of their content, the byliny lack the intimate approach to courtly love necessary in romance, since it is the defence of the land that constitutes the main task of the hero if he wants to be successful. If the analysis is structural, the quest of the hero and shameful behaviour of the ruler seem to remove both from the realm of the chansons de geste. Are they, then, chansons de geste in the form of romance? Or uncourtly romances devoid of love? Or adventure tales closer to Odyssean accounts?" (Torres Prieto, 2011)

In any case, Torres Prieto notes that the absence of romantic love in old Slavic is so characteristics that "it is, in actual fact, the unifying feature common to all translations made throughout the Slavic realm and one of the defining characteristics of heroic poetry in Slavonic." (Torres Prieto, 2011).

Similar observations can be made about Russian folk tales:

'As a rule, sexual themes are not treated erotically or chivalrously. Russian folk tales are not incipient love stories, as they frequently were in Western cultures. The Russian fairy-tale princess is often mute, unwilling or passive in the beginning. Once moved to act, however, she is matter-of-fact, inventive, alert to what it takes to survive trial and temptation.' [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]

Early modern period

The emergence of romantic narrative can be dated to the beginning of the 18 th c. with the publication of the so-called Petrine tales -the narratives featuring the adventures of a young Russian in Europe. The anonymous Tale of the Russian Cavalier Aleksandr (circa 1719-1725) as well as The Tale of the Russian Seaman Vasilii Koriotsky are one of the first narratives traditional legend of Tristan and Yseut are many and clearly show that the audience of Povest o Tryshchane was much less interested in romantic love than its Western European counterpart.

To begin with, Trysčan and Ižota fall in love before taking the potion. This decreases the dramatic potential of the story for the two characters cannot be the start-crossed lovers that they are in the original story, attracted to each other because they mistakenly drank a beverage that was not intended for them (Prieto, 2011). The absence of interest in the love story is also visible in the lack of intimate episodes between the two characters. In the Belarusian version, they do not escape to the Forest of Morrois. There is actually no forest in the version. Therefore, they do not spend time living their love in isolation as in the other European versions. Historian of East Slavic literature Torres Pietro concludes: "The Belarusian Trysčan is, paradoxically, not a story about love, either doomed or of any other kind. It is an account of the deeds of a bold hero and his fights, adventures and death" (Prieto, 2011).

Thus, the Belarrusian Tristan is typical of the Russian works of the period: 'The Belarusian 'Tristan' shares its distinct characteristics, chiefly its lack of a romantic element, with the translations and adaptations of other romances, and this is indeed one of the defining features of the heroic court poetry, the byliny, in Slavonic.' (Kalinke, 2011, 4). Perhpas more strikingly, as Marianne E. Kalinke notes in her introduction to The Arthur of the North: The Arthurian Legend in the Norse and Rus' Realms, there is a surprising convergence between the Belarussian version and the Norse versions:

(...) the Belarusian 'Tristan' romance bears some comparison with the Icelandic version of the 'Tristan' legend, that is, the Saga af Tristram ok Ísodd (...), the author of which introduced substantial changes, especially in the formulation of the love problematic, and thereby adapted the traditional courtly legend to a non-courtly culture. (Kalinke, 2011, 4).

European folk tales imported to Russia represent another interesting cultural chain. Consider the tale "Faithful John". The many European versions of this tale -including Old French, Middle English, Swedish-all open as a typical chivalric love story in which the hero has to show that he is a real knight. However, in its migration throughout Eastern Europe, the tale absorbed local motifs and amplified different virtues. A number of crucial details are altered and, importantly, romantic love is far less in evidence [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF].

More generally, it is notable that while Russia was in contact with Western literature since at least the 16 th c., Western romantic works were not warmly received [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]Moser, 1992). For instance, in the early 18th c., Peter the Great tried to create a state-sponsored public theatre in Red Square. But opponents sabotaged the construction, audiences had to be bribed to attend, and the plays were uniformly rendered in an archaic biblical style completely at odds with their content and with spectators' interest [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]. In the same way, from around the 17 th c., literate Russians had access to love poetry, school drama, satires, popular histories, picaresque tales and chivalric romances [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]Moser, 1992). Yet, it is not until the middle of the 18 th c. that original romantic works are written in Russian. This shows how important was the psychological divide between the European and the Russian audiences.

  Figure S13 The cultural chain of the story of Tristan and Iseult. Blue arrows represent cultural transmission. 1. Estoire de Tristan, Anon., 1150 (lost); 2. Chevrefoil, Marie de France, 1165; 3. Tristan, Thomas, 1170; 4. Tristrant, Eilhart of Oberg, 1180; 5. Tristan, Beroul, 1180; 6. Donnei des amanz, Anon., end of 12 th c.; 7. Folie Tristan of Berne, Anon., end of 12 th c.; 8. Folie Tristan of Oxford, Anon., end of 12 th c.; 9. Tristan und Isolde, Gottfried of Strasbourg, 1210; 10. La continuation de Perceval (Tristan Ménestrel), Gerbert de Montreuil, 1226-1230; 11. Tristrams Saga ok Isöndar, Brother Róbert, 1226; 12. Geitarlauf, Anon., beg. of 13 th c.; 13. First continuation of Gottfried of Strasbourg's Tristan und Isolde, Ulrich of Türheim, 1230; 14. Prose Tristan, Luce del Gat, 1235; 15. Tristan als Mönch, 1210-1260; 16. Roman de la Poire, Tibaut, 1240-1250; 17. Tristan le Nain, Anonymous, 1250; 18. Second continuation of Gottfried of Strasbourg's Tristan and Isolde, Heinrich of Freiberg, 1300 (from Strasbourg); 19. Saga af Tristram ok Ísodd, Anonymous, 1300; 20. Sire Tristrem, Anon., 1300-1350; 21. Roman de Roi Artus or the Compilation, Rustichello da Pisa, end of 13th c.; 22. Tristano Riccardiano, Anon., end of 13 th c.; 23. Tristano Veneto, Anon., late 13 th c.; 24. Zibaldone da Canal, Anon., Venice, 1290-1300; 25. Tristano Palatino, Anon., 14 th ; 26. Tavola Ritonda, Anon., end of 14 th c.; 27. Livro de Tristán, Anon., end of 14th c.; 28. Tristany (manuscript of the Arxiu de les Set Claus), Anon., 2 nd half of XIVth c.; 29. Tristany, (manuscript of the Ayuntamiento of Cervera), Anon. end of the XIVth c.; 30. Tristano Panciaticchiano, Anon., 14 th c.; 31. Tristano Corsiniano, Anon., end of 14 th c.; 32. Tristan, Anon., (lost); 33. Tristram a Izalda, Anon., early 15 th c.; 34. The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyones, Malory, 1485.; 35. Códice de Tristán, Anon., beg. of 15th c.; 36. Cuento de Tristán, Anon., end of 15th c.; 37. Tristán de Leonís, Anon., end of 15 th c.; 38. Tristán el Joven, Anon., 1534; 39. Trysčan, Anon., 16 th c.; 40. Greek poem, Anon., 14th c.; 41. Ballad of Thisterom and Isall, Anon., 17th c. (poss. 13th c.); 42. Ballads of Tristan, Anon., (date unknown) 43. Tristrams kvaeði, 17th c. (poss. 13th c.)

1.

  The Story of Yingying, a chuanqi (short story) by Yuan Zhen (around 800) 2. The Story of Yingying, a guzi ci (drum song) by Zhao Lingzhi (1051-1134) 3. The Story of the Western Wing in All Keys and Modes, a zhugongdiao (ballad) by Dong Jieyan (fl. 1190) 4. The Story of the Western Wing, a zaju (play) by Wang Shifu (1250-1337) 5. The Story of the Western Wing, a zaju edited to be read by Jin Shengtan (1610-1661)

Figure 2 |

 2 Figure 2 | Proportion of occurrences of characters in the Odyssey and the Argonautica

  [START_REF] Booker | The seven basic plots : Why we tell stories[END_REF]. The seven basic plots: Why we tell stories. A&C Black. Fantuzzi, M. (2012). Achilles in love: intertextual studies. OUP Oxford. Finley, M. I. (1965). The World of Odysseus, rev. Ed. New York: Viking. Konstan, D. (2014). Sexual symmetry: Love in the ancient novel and related genres. Princeton University Press. Naerebout, F. G. (1987). Male-female relationships in the Homeric epics. In: Blok J.H., Mason P. (Eds.) Sexual asymmetry. Studies in ancient society. Amsterdam. 109 -146.

  Cadau, C. (2015). Studies in Colluthus' Abduction of Helen.Brill. Frangoulis, H. (2014). Du roman à l'épopée : Influence du roman grec sur les Dionysiaques de Nonnos de Panopolis (Vol. 1287). Persée-Portail des revues scientifiques en SHS.

  Early Islamic period Persian literature is famous for its love stories such Bijan and Manijeh, Zal and Roudabeth, Rustem and Temineh by Ferdowsi (included in the Shahnameh (late 10 th c.), Vis and Rāmin by Gorgani (11 th c.), Vāmiq u ʿAḏhrā by Unsuri (11 th c.), Varqa u Gulshāh by Ayyuqi (11 th c.), Khosrow and Shirin and Layla and Majnun by Nizami (12 th c.) or Homāy o Homāyun by Kermani (13 th c.). Layla and Majnun is probably the most famous story. Since these works are not well-known outside the field of Persian literature, it is worth giving a short summary to the reader:

  Idema, W. (2009) Filial Piety and Its Divine Rewards: The Legend of Dong Yong and Weaving Maiden with Related Texts. Hackett Publishing. Lanselle, R. (2015). Introduction à la traduction du Pavillon de l'ouest. In Le Pavillon de l'ouest. Les Belles Lettres. Lévy, A

Figure 4|

 4| Figure 4| Number of literary work dealing with love by period (Balda-Tillier, 2009)

  Heath, P. (2006). Other Sīras and Popular Narratives. Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, 319-329. Irwin, R. (2014). The Arabian nights: A companion. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. Kruk, R. (2006). Sīrat 'Antar ibn Shaddād. Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, 292-305. Reynolds, D. F. (2006a). A Thousand and One Nights : A history of the text and its reception. Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, 270-91. Reynolds, D. F. (2006b). Popular prose in the post-classical period. Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, 6, 245-269.

From

  Late Roman Empire (Greek) to the Classical periodJust as in Western Europe, Byzantium, Norway and Persia, the Alexander romance based on a late Greek Roman work (Historia Alexandri Magni, 3 rd c.) inspired several narrative reworkings, notably the Sīrat al-Iskandar[START_REF] Doufikar-Aerts | Sīrat al-Iskandar : An Arabic Popular Romance of Alexander[END_REF]. The Arabic version did not

  Symes, C. (2016). Ancient Drama in the Medieval World. A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama, 97-130.

  Symes, C. (2016). Ancient Drama in the Medieval World. A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama, 97-130.

  Evans, G.,& Fulton, H. (2019). The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature. (Cambridge). Cambridge University Press. Davies, S. (2007). The Mabinogion. (Oxford). Oxford University Press. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Before the 19 th c., economic indicators are very limited for Wales. During the early Middle Age and before the Norman invasion (500 -1100), economic and social development were

Table S25 : Relative importance of childhood by area and by period (for the full list of references, see the Ancient Literary Fictions Values Survey)

 S25

				Yes
	Tang dynasty	Late Imperial China	Wu, 1995	Yes
	Early Modern China	Early Modern Europe	Hsiung, 2007; Saari, 1990;	Yes
			Stearns, 2016; Wu, 2006
	Medieval Japan	Edo period	Farris, 2009; Frühstück, &	Yes
			Walthall, 2017; Platt, 2005
	Early Modern Japan	Early Modern Europe	Jones, 2010; Paget, 2011;	Yes
			Stearns, 2016

Figure S13 The cultural chain of the story of Tristan and Iseult. Blue arrows represent cultural transmission. 1. Estoire de Tristan, Anon., 1150 (lost); 2. Chevrefoil, Marie de France, 1165; 3. Tristan, Thomas, 1170; 4. Tristrant, Eilhart of Oberg, 1180; 5. Tristan, Beroul, 1180; 6. Donnei des amanz, Anon., end of 12 th c.; 7. Folie Tristan of Berne, Anon., end of 12 th c.; 8. Folie Tristan of Oxford, Anon., end of 12 th c.; 9. Tristan und Isolde, Gottfried of Strasbourg, 1210; 10. La continuation de Perceval (Tristan Ménestrel), Gerbert de Montreuil, 1226-1230; 11. Tristrams Saga ok Isöndar, Brother Róbert, 1226; 12. Geitarlauf, Anon., beg. of 13 th c.; 13. First continuation of Gottfried of Strasbourg's Tristan und Isolde, Ulrich of Türheim, 1230; 14. Prose Tristan, Luce del Gat, 1235; 15. Tristan als Mönch, 1210-1260; 16. Roman de la Poire, Tibaut, 1240-1250; 17. Tristan le Nain, Anonymous, 1250; 18. Second continuation of Gottfried of Strasbourg's Tristan and Isolde, Heinrich of Freiberg, 1300 (from Strasbourg); 19. Saga af Tristram ok Ísodd, Anonymous, 1300; 20. Sire Tristrem, Anon., 1300-1350; 21. Roman de Roi Artus or the Compilation, Rustichello da Pisa, end of 13th c.; 22. Tristano Riccardiano, Anon., end of 13 th c.; 23. Tristano Veneto, Anon., late 13 th c.; 24. Zibaldone da Canal, Anon., Venice, 1290-1300; 25. Tristano Palatino, Anon., 14 th ; 26. Tavola Ritonda, Anon., end of 14 th c.; 27. Livro de Tristán, Anon., end of 14th c.

England, France, Germany, Italy, Low Countries, Spain): 500 -1800

	#35 Post-classical period	High	Yes	2006; Reynolds, 2006a,b Heath, 2006; Irwin, 2014; Kruk,	Sirat 'Antar
	Western Europe (Early medieval
	#36 England	Low	No
	#37 France	Low	No
	#38 Germany	Low	No	Gies, 2004; Hasty et al., 2004;
				Lees, 2012; Mantello & Rigg,
				1996; Murdoch & Hardin, 2004
	#39 Italy	Low	No
	#40 Low Countries	Low	No
	#41 Spain	Low	No
	Central medieval
	#42 England	High	Yes
	#43 France	High	Yes
	#44 Germany	High	Yes
	#45 Italy	High	Yes
	#46 Low Countries	High	Yes
	#47 Spain	High	No*

Table 1 : Predicted and observed presence of Romantic Love Stories by period and by area (Periods where prediction and/or data are unconclusive have been excluded. For the full list and the references, see below each section).

 1

	Tristam saga, Strengleikar,
	Flores and Blankiflur

Tale of the Russian Cavaliers Aleksandr, Comedies (The Brigadier, The Minor), Operas (The Power of Love and Hatred), Tragedies

Europe (England, France, Germany, Italy, Low Countries, Spain): 500 -1800

	Early Medieval	Central Medieval
	period #15 England	Increase	Increase	Gies
	#16 France	Increase	Increase
	#17 Germany	Increase	Increase
	#18 Italy	Increase	Increase
	#79 Low Countries	Increase	Increase
	#20 Spain	Increase	Increase

Table S2 : Relative level of romantic love by area and by period (Periods where prediction and/or data are unconclusive have been excluded. For the full list and the references, see each section below)

 S2

					;
					Torre, 2015
	Central Medieval	Late Medieval
	period				Otis-Cour, 2005
	#21 France		Increase	Increase
	Late Medieval period	Early Modern
					Daumas, 1996; Greiner, 2017
	#22 France		Increase	Increase
			Wales: 500 -1800
	#23 Late Medieval period	Early Modern	Increase	Increase	Evans & Fulton, 2019
			Japan: 700 -1800
	#24 Nara	Heian	Increase	Increase	Kato, & Sanderson, 2013; Keene, 1999.
	#25 Heian	Kamakura	Decrease	Decrease	Keene, 1999
	#26 Kamakura	Muromachi	Increase	Increase	Keene, 1999, Shirane, & Suzuki, 2015, Shuichi, 1979, Sieffert, 2001
	#27 Heian	Edo	Increase	Increase	Childs, 1999, 2010; Walter, 1994
			Ireland: 700 -1800
	#28 Late Medieval period	Early Modern	Increase	Increase	Pereira, 2007
			Norway: 800 -1500
	#29 Early Medieval	Central medieval	Increase	Increase	Bandlien, 2005; Eggertsdóttir, 2008
	period
			Russia: 1100 -1800
	#30 Medieval period	Early Modern	Increase	Increase	Emerson, 2008; Moser, 1992

Genre Early period Late period Economic development Observations (* indicates inconsistencies with economic trends) References Ancient Greece: 800 BCE -1800 CE Epics

				Burgess, 2005;
				Daniel-Müller,
	Archaic Greece (ex: Iliad)	#1 Hellenistic world (ex: Argonautica)	Increase	Increase

Rome: 300 BCE -500 CE

		Sophocles,
		Euripides)
	Novels	Greek novels	#13 Latin novels	Decrease	Decrease	Konstan, 2014
			2 Late Roman (ex: Posthomerica, Dionysiaca, The Abduction of Helen)	Increase	Increase	Cadau, 2015; Frangoulis, 2014
		Hellenistic world	#3 Late Roman (ex:			Booker, 2004; Le
		(ex:	Posthomerica, Dionysiaca,	Decrease	Decrease	Guen, 2014;
		Argonautica)	The Abduction of Helen)			Scafuro, 2014
	Comedies Classical Greece (Aristophanes)	#4 Hellenistic Greece (Menander)	Increase	Increase	Booker, 2004; Le Guen, 2014; Scafuro, 2014
	Tragedies Classical Greece	#5 Early Medieval Byzantium	Decrease	Decrease	Symes, 2016
	Epics	Archaic Greece	#6 Roman Republic (Livius
		(ex: Iliad)	Andronicus, Naeviu,	Stable	Stable	Goldberg, 2005
			Ennius)
			#7 Early Roman Empire (ex:			Foley, 2008;
			the Achilleid)	Increase	Increase	Harrison, 2008;
						Konstan, 2014
			#8 Late Early Empire (Claudian' De raptu Proserpinae)	Increase	Increase	Parkes, 2015; Tsai, 2007
		Hellenistic	#9 Roman Republic (Livius	Decrease	Decrease	Clauss, 2010;
		Greece (ex: The	Andronicus, Naeviu,			Goldberg, 2005
		Argonautica)	Ennius)
		Early Roman	#10 Late Early Empire	Decrease	Decrease	Parkes, 2015; Tsai,
		Empire (ex: The	(Claudian' De raptu			2007; Wheeler,
		Aeneid)	Proserpinae)			1995
	Comedies Hellenistic	#11 Roman Republic	Decrease	Decrease/	Fontaine, 2014;
		Greek world	(Plautus, Terence)		Stable*	James, 2020;
		(Menander)				Konstan, 2014
	Tragedies Classical Greece	#12 Early Roman Empire	Stable	Stable	Gregory, 2008
		(Aeschylus,	(Seneca)

Western Europe (England, France, Germany, Italy, Low Countries, Spain): 500 -1800

		Greek tragedy	Early modern tragedy
		(Aeschylus, Sophocles,	#31 England (Shakespeare)	Mixed	Increase*
		Euripides)	#32 France (Racine,	Decrease	Increase*
			Corneille)	Decrease	Increase*
			#33 German (Soliman,			Schironi, 2016;
			Cleopatra)			Wyles, 2016
			#34 Italy (Adriana)	Increase	Increase
	Epics	Archaic Greece (ex: Iliad)	#14 England (ex: The Faerie (Granida, Orbecche) Early modern Europe #35 Low Countries	Increase	Increase
		Latin tragedy	Queene) #36 Spain (Los amantes) #15 France (ex: Franciade, Henriade) Central Medieval period	Increase Decrease Increase	Increase Increase* Increase
		(Seneca)	#16 Germany (ex: Cort #37 England (John Garland)	Increase Stable	Increase Stable	Symes, 2016
			Begryp der XII Boecken #38 France (Peter of Blois) Olympiados) Late Medieval period #17 Italy (ex: Orlando Furioso) #39 Italy (Humanistic	Increase Stable Increase Increase	Increase Stable Increase Stable*	Dué, 2005; Meijer, 2012 Schironi, 2016
			#18 Low Countries (ex: tragedies: Ecerinis)
			Cort Begryp der XII Early modern tragedy Boecken Olympiados) #40 England (Shakespeare)	Increase Increase	Increase Increase
			#19 Spain (ex: La Corneille) hermosura de Angelica) #41 France (Racine,	Decrease	Increase*
		Early Roman Empire (ex: The Achilleid)	36rbis) #43 Italy (Adriana) and De bellis Parisiacae Early medieval period #20 France (Vita Marini, #42 Germany (Soliman, Cleopatra)	Decrease Decrease	Decrease Increase
			#44 Low Countries #21 Italy (Gesta Berengarii imperatoris) (Granida, Orbecche)	Decrease Increase Increase	Decrease Increase* Increase	Roberts, 2001
			#22 Germany (Karolus #45 Spain (Los amantes)	Decrease Decrease	Decrease Increase*
			magnus et Leo papa,
			Waltharius)
	Plays	Latin comedy	Early Medieval period
		Terence) (Plautus,	#23 Germany (Hrotsvitha)	Decrease	Decrease	Symes, 2016
			Central Medieval period
			#24 France (Elegiac	Decrease	Decrease	Symes, 2016
			comedies: Babio, De tribus
			puellis, De vetula, Geta)
			Early modern comedy
			#25 Italy (Aminta)	Increase	Increase
			#26 France (Molière's	Decrease	Increase*
			L'avare)
			#27 England (Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet)	Decrease	Increase*	Brand, Brand, &
			#28 Spain (Tiros de Molina's Lovers of Teruel)	Decrease	Increase*	Pertile, 1999; Gies, 2004; Meijer, 2012; Watanabe-O'Kelly
			#29 Germany (Minna von
			Barnhelm, Misanthropy and contrition, (The tender	Decrease	Increase*
			sisters)
			#30 Low Countries	Increase	Increase
			(Granida)

Periods Examples (source in parenthesis) Prediction /Observation (* indicates inconsistencies with economic trends) References Source period Reworking period Ancient Greece: 800 BCE -1800 CE Archaic Greece

  limit bias in data analysis, each literary work (e.g. Roman de Troie) was only compared to the original source (Iliad) and not to all the intermediate versions (e.g. Achilleid) that may, or may not, have influence this literary work. We also excluded cases of transmission within Western Europe during the medieval period because they are too numerous and too multidirectional for our study. For instance, Thomas' Tristan inspired many reworking in France, Norway, Germany but the French reworking Prose Tristan also inspired later English reworking such as Morte Arthur. The same observation can be made for Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae which inspired Chretien de Troye who, in turn, inspired a new generation of English Arthurian romances. In any case, including these two examples would probably reinforce the results as there is an increase of romantic love from the early English Tristan to the later European Tristan, and from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae to the later European romances.

	Confirming Hypothesis 4, the study reveals that economic development is associated with an
	increase in the relative importance of romantic love between the original period and the period
	of reworking of story lines.
			Daniel-Müller,
	#1 Classical Greece	Helen (Iliad), Andromeda (Greek myth), Antigone (Theban Cycle)	Increase /Increase

Rome: 300 BCE -500 CE

					Goldwyn &
					Nilsson, 2018
					Daniel-Müller,
		#5 Hellenistic Greece	The Argonautica (Medea)	Increase /Increase	2008; Konstan, 2014; Zanker,
					1979.
	Classical Greece		Panthea and Abradate in the
			Chiliades (Xenophons's
		#6 Byzantium	Cyropedia),	Decrease Decrease	Jouanno, 2009
			Extracts of History
			(Xenophons's Cyropedia)
	Hellenistic Greece	#7 Late Roman Greece	Argonautica Orphica (Apollonius' Argonautica)	Decrease /Decrease	Frabre, 1972
	Early Roman Greece	#8 Byzantium (Central Medieval period)	Alexander Romance	Stable /Stable	Beaton, 2012; Zuwiyya, 2011
			The War of Troy (Roman de
	Western Europe (Central Medieval Period)	#9 Byzantium (Central Medieval period)	Troie), Phlorios and Platzia-Phlora (French Floire and Blanchefleur) Imperios and Margarona (Pierre de Provence et la Belle	Decrease /Decrease	Beaton, 2012; Luzi, 2018; Yiavis, K. 2016
			Maguelonne), Theseid
			(Boccaccio's Teseida)
	Archaic Greece	#10 Early Roman	Ovid's Metamorphoses (Greek	Increase
		Empire	myths), Heroides (Iliad, Odyssey, Greek myths), Argonautica by Flaccus (Greek	/Increase	Foley, 2008; Harrison, 2008
			myth)
	Classical Greece #11 Early Roman	Medea (Medea), Phaedra	Stable/
		Empire	(Hippolytus), Agamemnon (Agamemnon), Oedipus	Stable	Gregory, 2008
			(Oedipus Rex)
	Hellenistic world #12 Roman Republic	Cistellaria (Synaristosae), Bacchides (Dis Exapaton), Heauton Timorumenos (Heauton Timorumenos)	Decrease /Stable*	Fontaine, 2014; James, 2020; Konstan, 2014
		#13 Early Roman Empire	Flaccus'Argonautica (Apollonius' Argonautica)	Stable /Decrease*	Hershkowitz, 1998
			The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes (myth of the Argonauts)	Increase /Increase	Zanker, 1979
			Posthomerica (Iliad), The		Cadau, 2015;
		#3 Late Roman	Abduction of Helen (Iliad), Argonautica Orphica (Greek	Increase /Increase	Frangoulis, 2014; McGill & &
			myth)		Watts, 2018
		#4 Late Medieval Byzantium	Tale of Achilles, Tale of Troy	Increase /Increase	Beaton, 2012; Garland, 1990;

Western Europe (England, France, Germany, Italy, Low Countries, Spain): 500 -1800

	Central	Late Medieval period Early Modern Europe Late Medieval Europe	(examples from The Aeneid) (examples from The Song of
	Medieval Europe	#19 England #20 Italy #40 England #57 Italy	Troilus and Criseyde Filostrato, Teseida (from Statius) Marlowe' Dido, Queen of Carthage, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (Aeneid) Roland) Entrée d'Espagne, Morgante, La Spagna, Orlando Innamorato	Increase /Increase Increase /Increase	Goldwyn, 2010; Usher, 1996 Martin, 1990 Laradji, 2008; Wikipedia contributors, 2020
	Early modern Europe #21 England #22 France #23 Germany #24 Italy #25 Low Countries #26 Spain #41 France #42 Germany Early Modern Eur. #58 England #43 Italy #59 France #60 Germany #44 Spain #61 Italy #45 Early Modern #62 Spain Classical Greece Early modern Europe Early medieval #27 England Ireland Europe China (Yuan Early Modern Europe dynasty) #63 England	The Two Noble Kinsmen, Palamon and Arcite (Theban Cycle) Jason et Médée (myth of the Argonauts) Gluck's Paride e Elena Cavalli's Giasone (examples from The Song of Desmarets' Didon, Collasse's Enée et Lavinie Hasse's Didone abbandonata Roland) Haendel's Orlando Cavalli's and Mattioli's La Lully's Roland Didone, Sarro's and Jomelli's Didone abbandonata Haydn's Orlando paladino Huydecoper's Achilles Tiros de Molina's El Aquiles, Terradellas' Didone abbandonata Orlando Furioso (Ariosto, Vivaldi) Lope de Vega's El labirento de Creta Keating's Deirdre (Deirdre) Lope de Vega's La hermosura de Angelica Dryden's Oedipus, Haendel's Alceste From The Orphan of Zhao	Increase /Increase Increase /Decrease* Increase Increase /Increase /Decrease* Increase Increase /Increase /Increase Increase /Increase Increase /Decrease* Increase /Increase Increase Increase /Increase /Increase Mixed /Increase* Increase	Laradji, 2008; Wikipedia contributors, 2020 Boitani, 1989; Sommerstein, Fitzpatrick, & Talboy, 2006 Pereira, 2007 Hsia, 1988
	#28 France #29 Germany #30 Low Countries #31 Spain Cent. Med. Europe #46 England #64 France #65 Germany #47 France #48 Germany #66 Italy Roman Republic Early modern Europe Early medieval Wales #49 Italy	Racine's Andromach Gluck's Alceste, Iphegenie Coster's Ifigenia Marie de France From The Orphan of Zhao Lancelot-Grail From The Orphan of Zhao Lanzelet, Iwain, Erec, Parzival From The Orphan of Zhao Lope de Vega's Hippolytus Roman de Roi Artus Ireland: 700 -1800	/Increase Decrease /Increase* Increase /Increase Increase /Increase Decrease /Increase* Increase Increase /Increase /Increase Increase /Unknown Decrease Increase /Increase Increase /Increase /Decrease* Increase /Increase	Kenward, 2016; Aurell, 2006; Benson, 2001; Schironi, 2016; Wyles, 2016 Enstone, 2012; Hook, 2015; Jackson, & Ranawake, 2000; Kalinke, 2011; Psaki & Allaire, 2014; Reddy, 2012; Setecka, 2005
	Early Medieval Ireland	#32 England #33 France #50 Low Countries Late Med. Europe #67 Central Medieval Ireland #51 England	The Conscious Lovers (Andria), The Comedy of Errors (Menaechmi) The Miser (Aulularia) The Lancelot-Compilatie, Roman van Ferguut Deirdre Le Morte d'Arthur, Sir	Increase /Increase Increase /Increase Increase /Stable Increase /Increase Increase	Schironi, 2016; Wyles, 2016 Kinsella, 2002; Mhaonaigh, 2006; ó Cathasaigh, 2006; Pereira, Cormier, 1976; 2007
		#34 Italy #68 Early Modern Ireland	Il Marito (Amphitruo), Cassaria (Cistellaria) Galles Launfal, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Perceval of Deirdre	Increase /Increase /Increase Increase /Increase	1995; Torre, Gallais, 1974; Marchello-Nizia, Poppe & Reck, 2008
	Early Roman Empire	Central Medieval period #35 France #52 France	Roman d'Eneas (The Aeneid) Pereforest Wales: 500 -1800	Increase /Increase	Armstrong, 2005;
	Archaic Greece #212 Central Medieval France #69 Central Medieval Central Med. Europe #14 France #36 Germany #37 Low Countries #53 Italy #54 Spain Wales	(Examples from the War of Troy) Eneid Eneid Tavola Rotonda Lanzarote del Lago, Lançalot Geraint and Enid (Érec et Énide), Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain (Yvain, the Knight of the Lion)	Decrease /Increase* Increase /Increase Increase /Increase Decrease /Decrease	Gies, 2004; Collet, 1993; De Weever, 1990; Deist, 1994; Gaullier-Bougassas, 1991; Groos, 1976 Aronstein, 1994; Bromwich, Jarman, & Roberts, 1991; Lindahl, 2000
	Early medieval Europe	#15 Germany #16 Italy Early Mod. Europe Late medieval period #38 England #55 England #17 Low Countries #18 Spanish Early Modern Europe #39 Italy #56 Germany	Roman de Troie Trojanerkrieg, Liet von Troye Historia destructionis Troiae Confessio Amantis (Pyrasmus Dryden's King Arthur and Thisbe) Historie van Troyen Historia troyana polimetrica Decameron (Pyrasmus and Thisbe) Hildebrandslied	Increase /Increase Decrease Increase /Decrease /Increase /Decrease* /Increase Increase Increase	Gottschall, 2008; Wikipedia Meijer, 2012; Miller & contributors, Palmer, 1997; Newlands, 2014 Schultz, 1995; Yiavis, 2016 Wikipedia contributors,

Norway: 800 -1500 Central Medieval Europe

			Russia: 1100 -1800
	Classical Greece #73 Early Modern Russia	Antigona (Antigone)	Decrease /Increase*	Emerson, 2008; Moser, 1992
	Early Roman Empire	#74 Early Modern Russia	Dido (Aeneid)	Increase /Increase	Torlone, Munteanu, & Dutsch, 2017
	Central
	Medieval period (English)	#75 Late Medieval Russia	Trysčan (from Tristan and Iseult)	Decrease /Decrease	Emerson, 2008; Moser, 1992; Prieto, 2011
	Medieval Byzantium	#76 Late Medieval Russia	Devgenievo Dejanie (Digenes Akritas)	Increase /Increase	Prieto, 2011
			China 400 -1800
	Tang China		The Story of the Western Wing		Lanselle, 2015;
		#77 Song China	in All Keys and Modes (The Biography of Yingying), Tears on a Blue Gown (The Lute	Increase /Increase	Mair, 2012; Shih, 2015; Song, 2004; West & Idema,
			song)		1995
		#78 Yuan China	Wang Shifu's The Romance of the Western Chamber (The Biography of Yingying)	Increase /Increase	Lanselle, 2015; Mair, 2012; Song, 2004; West & Idema, 1995
			Jin Shengtan's The Story of the		Dong, 1981;
		#79 Ming China	Western Wing (The Biography of Yingying -Jin Shengtan's	Increase /Increase	Lanselle, 2015; Mair, 2012; West
			version)		& Idema, 1995
			Japan 700 -1800
	Kamakura period	#80 Muramochi period	Jōruri Monogatari (Tale of Heike), Story of Yokobue (Tale of Heike)	Increase /Increase	Keene, 1999
		#81 Edo period	The Soga Successors (Soga Monogatari)	Increase /Increase	Keene, 1999
			India: 500 BCE -1800
	Archaic India		Vikramōrvaśīyam
		#82 Classical India	(Mahābhārata), Shakuntala (Mahābhārata), Kadambari	Increase /Increase	Orsini, 2006; Thapar, 2011
			(Brihatkatha)
		#83 Early Medieval India	Nala and Damayanti (Mahābhārata)	Increase /Increase	Ali, 2006
		#84 Late Medieval India	Nala and Damayanti (Mahābhārata)	Increase /Increase	d'Hubert, 2018
		Medieval Norway #70 from England; #72 French #85 Early Modern India	Tristrams saga (Tristan and Iseult), Erex saga (Érec et Énide), Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr (Floire et Blanchefleur), Karlamagnús Nala and Damayanti (Mahābhārata)	Decrease /Decrease Increase /Increase	Alam & Leach, 1921 Barnes, 2000; Boyer, 1995; Subrahmanya, 2006;
			saga (Matter of France)

Table 3 : Predicted and observed presence of HRL Stories by period

 3

	Period	Economic Development	HRL stories (predictions)	HRL stories (observations)	Examples of HRL stories
	Archaic Greece	Low	No	No
	Classical Greece	High	Yes	Yes	Abradatas and Panthea
					New Comedy (Menander), Erotica Pathemata,
	Hellenistic World	High	Yes	Yes	Callirhoe, Metiochus and Parthenope, The
					Argonautica
	Early Roman Greece	High	Yes	Yes	Leucippe and Clitophon, The Aethiopica, Daphnis and Chloe
	Late Roman Greece	High	Yes	Yes	Hero and Leander, The Abduction of Helen
	Early Medieval	Low	No	No
	Greece

  Kazhdan, A. P., Angelidē, C., & Sherry, L. F. (1999). A history of Byzantine literature. National Hellenic Research Foundation, Institute for Byzantine Research.

  (see below Western Europe). However, it must be noted that original, new love stories such as Livistros and Rodamne, Velthandros and Chrysantza, Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe are also written during this period ( Cupane, 2016.

  Beaton, R. (2012). The medieval Greek romance. Routledge. Cupane, C. (2016). In the Realm of Eros: The Late Byzantine Vernacular Romance-Original Texts. In Fictional Storytelling in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond (pp. 95-126). Brill. Goldwyn, A. J., & Nilsson, I. (2018). Reading the Late Byzantine Romance : A Handbook. Cambridge University Press.

Table 4 : Relative level of romantic love by period (predicted and observed) Earlier period Later period Prediction Observations

 4

	Archaic period	Classical period	Increase	Increase
	Classical period	Hellenistic period	Increase	Increase
	Hellenistic period	Early Roman	Decrease	Increase*
	Early Empire	Late Roman	Decrease	Decrease
	Classical period	Early Roman	Decrease	Increase*

Table 5 : Relative level of romantic love by period and by genre (predicted and observed)

 5

	Genre	Early period	Late period	Prediction	Observation
		Archaic Greece (ex: Iliad)	Hellenistic world (ex: Argonautica)	Increase	Increase
			Late Roman (ex: Posthomerica,
	Epic	Archaic Greece (ex: Iliad)	Helen) Dionysiaca, The Abduction of	Increase	Increase
			Late Roman (ex: Posthomerica,
		Hellenistic world (ex: Argonautica)	Dionysiaca, The Abduction of	Decrease	Decrease
			Helen)
	Comedy	Classical Greece (Aristophanes)	Hellenistic world (Menander)	Increase	Increase
		Classical Greece	Hellenistic world	Increase	Unknown
	Tragedy	Classical Greece	Byzantium	Decrease	Decrease
		Classical Greece	Early Modern Greece (Crete)	Unknown	Increase

  Unlike in Apollonius' Argonautica, none of the love stories of Dionysiaca are symmetric or even reciprocal(Frangoulis, 2014). This clearly demonstrates a lower level of romanticism than in the Greek novels of the early Roman Empire. In the same way, compared to Hellenistic works, The Abduction of Helen 'can hardly be defined as a love story': 'The encounter of Paris and Helen occupies around seventy lines and, while it is certainly a central part of the poem, it represents only one stage of the erotic process rather than a full love story. (…) There is no romantic anticipation on behalf of either of the two characters involved.'(Cadau, 2015, p. 28) Frangoulis, H. (2014). Du roman à l'épopée : Influence du roman grec sur les Dionysiaques de Nonnos de Panopolis (Vol. 1287). Persée-Portail des revues scientifiques en SHS.Cadau, C. (2015). Studies in Colluthus' Abduction of Helen. Brill.

	Cadau, C. (2015). Studies in Colluthus' Abduction of Helen. Brill.
	Frangoulis, H. (2014). Du roman à l'épopée : Influence du roman grec sur les Dionysiaques de Nonnos
	de Panopolis (Vol. 1287). Persée-Portail des revues scientifiques en SHS.

Epic: Hellenistic period and Late Roman period

  . This is visible when comparing Sophocles' Antigone(441 BCE) and what is known of Euripides' lost version of Antigone, written one generation later (420-406 BCE). Euripides' version of the Antigone story was more probably romantic than Sophocles' version. Later commentators indeed say that, in this version, Antigone and Haemon, after being caught burying Polynices, were nevertheless married "on account of Hemon's love" and had a child together

Table 6 : Relative level of romantic love by area, by period and by story line (predicted and observed)

 6

	Periods
			Examples (source in parenthesis)	Prediction	Observation
	Source period	Rewriting period
		Classical Greece	myth), Antigone (Theban Cycle) Helen (Iliad), Andromeda (Greek	Increase	Increase
	Archaic Greece	Hellenistic Greece	Rhodes (myth of the Argonauts) The Argonautica by Apollonius of	Increase	Increase
			Posthomerica (Iliad), The Abduction	Increase	Increase
		Late Roman	of Helen (Iliad), Argonautica
			Orphica (Greek myth)
		Byzantium	Tale of Achilles, Tale of Troy	Increase	Increase
		Hellenistic world	The Argonautica (Medea)	Increase	Increase
	Classical Greece		Panthea and Abradate in the
		Byzantium	Chiliades and in Extracts of History.	Decrease	Decrease
			(Xenophons's Cyropedia)
	Hellenistic world Late Roman	Argonautica Orphica (Apollonius' Argonautica)	Decrease	Decrease
	Early Roman (Greek)	Central Byzantium	Alexander Romance	Stable	Stable
			The War of Troy (Roman de Troie),
			Phlorios and Platzia-Phlora
	Western Europe (Central	Late Byzantium	(French Floire and Blanchefleur) Imperios and Margarona (Pierre de	Decrease	Decrease
	Medieval Period)		Provence et la Belle Maguelonne), Theseid (Boccaccio's Teseida)
		Early Modern Greece (Crete)	Erotokritos (Paris and Vienne)	Unknown	Stable
	Western Europe (Early Modern period -Italy)	Early Modern Greece (Crete)	Erifili (Orbecche)	Unknown	Increase

  Economic indicators suggest that the Byzantine versions should be less romantic than their Western source. Here is what Yiavis wrote about the Byzantium version of the Roman de Troie:

Beaton, R. (2012)

. The medieval Greek romance. Routledge.

[START_REF] Zuwiyya | A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages[END_REF]

. A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages. Brill.

Story lines from Western Europe (Central Medieval period) to Byzantium

The third case concerns romances inspired by European romances of the Central medieval period are The War of Troy (from the French Roman de Troie), Phlorios and Platzia-Phlora (from the French Floire and Blanchefleur) Imperios and Margarona (from the French Pierre de Provence et la Belle Maguelonne), Apollonios of Tyre (from an Italian version) and Theseid (from Boccaccio's Teseida)

(Beaton, 2012)

.

  The Economic History Review.Dyson, T. (2018). A Population History of India : From the First Modern People to the Present Day-Tim Dyson.Oxford University Press.Haimendorf, C. von F. (1967). Morals and merit : A study of values and social controls in South Asian societies.London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.Lindert, P. H. (2016). Purchasing Power Disparity before 1914. National Bureau of Economic Research. McEvedy, C., Jones, R., & others. (1978). Atlas of world population history. Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England.

1870s.

Table 8 : Predicted and observed presence of HRL Stories by period

 8

	Period	Economic Development	HRL stories (predictions)	HRL stories (observations)	Examples of HRL stories
	Vedic-Archaic	Low	No	No
	Classical period	High	Yes	Yes	Nala and Damayantī, The Recognition of
					Śakuntalā, Kadambarī, Mālatīmādhava or,
					better, Mālatī and Mādhava, Mālavikā and
					Agnimitra, Kuṟiñcippāṭṭu
	Early medieval	High	Mixed	Yes	Naishadha Charita
	Late medieval	High	Yes	Yes	Shirin and Khosrow, Chandayana, Dhola
					Maru Ra Doha
	Early modern	High	Yes	Yes	Sihrul Bayan, Qissa-e-ul-Muluk-o-Badi-il-
					Jamal,	Kotiyaviraham,	Kalikamangal,
					Kanakalata, Sassui Punnhun

.

  Love in South Asia : A cultural history (Vol. 62). Cambridge University Press. Thundy, Zacharias P. "Courtly Love and Ancient India." Journal of South Asian Literature 16.1 (1981): 45-59. van Buitenen, J. A. B. (2011). The Mahabharata, volume 1 : Book 1: the book of the beginning. University of Chicago Press.

  ), in Telugu with Peddanna's Manucaritramu (late 15 th c. -early 16 th c.), in Rajasthani with Dhola Maru Ra Doha, the love story of Narwar prince DholaThe early modern period of Indian history corresponds to the rise and fall of the Mughal Empire. During this period, a relative peace was maintained, India's economy expanded and population increased. Again, the prediction derived from our main hypothesis is that love stories should be present. Starting with the Indo-Persian tradition, Urdu writers also continued the Persian traditions through the masnavi genre. Notable among these are Shekh Ahmed's

	Early modern period (c. 1526-1858 CE)

Yusuf Zulaikha (between 1580 and 1588) and Laila Majnun (prior to 1611), Ghavsasi's Masnavi-yi Sayf al-Muluk va Badi' al-Jamal (1639), Vajhi's Qutb-o-Mushtari (1609), Mohammad Ajiz's Yusuf Zulaikha (1697), Siraj's Bustan-i Khayal (prior to 1739), Wala Moosvi's Talib-o-Mohni (1757)

Table 10 : Relative level of romantic love by area, by period and by story line (predicted and observed)

 10

	Periods
			Examples (source in parenthesis)	Prediction Observation
	Source period	Rewriting period
		Classical India	Vikramōrvaśīyam (Mahabharata),	Increase	Increase
			Shakuntala (Mahabharata),
			Kadambari (Bṛhatkathā)
	Archaic India	Late Medieval India	Nala and Damayanti (from the	Increase	Increase
			Māhabhārata)
		Early Modern India	Nala and Damayanti (from the	Increase	Increase
			Māhabhārata)

  Four thousand years of urban growth : An historical census. http://www.popline.org/node/631829 Foldvari, P., & Van Leeuwen, B. (2012). Comparing per capita income in the Hellenistic world : The case of Mesopotamia. Review of Income and Wealth, 58(3), 550-568. McEvedy, C., Jones, R., & others. (1978). Atlas of world population history. Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England. https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19792702472 Morris, I. (2013). The measure of civilization : How social development decides the fate of nations.

	The Economic history review, 67(3), 627-651.
	Chandler, T. (1987). Princeton
	University Press.
	https://books.google.fr/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=uahKmtRcOEQC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=morris+civilizatio
	n&ots=PvU3yxNluf&sig=-huhDcBQLgkENToDLwIapkhDdIE
	Starr, S. F. (2013). Lost enlightenment : Central Asia's golden age from the Arab conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton
	University Press.
	CATEGORICAL METHOD (ABSENCE/PRESENCE OF LOVE STORIES)

Bolt, J., & Van Zanden, J. L. (2014)

. The Maddison Project : Collaborative research on historical national accounts.

Table 11 : Predicted and observed presence of HRL Stories by period

 11 Pre-Islamic narrative fictions are no longer extant. However, the study of Islamic literature allows having glimpse of the pre-Islamic narrative fictions. For instance, it has been shown tyhat Vis and Rāmin is based on a Parthian (247 BC -224 CE) story which demonstrates the existence of romantic love story during the Antiquity

	Period	Economic Development	Love stories (predictions)	Love stories (observations)	Examples of love stories
	Pre-Islamic period	High	High	Yes	Vis and Rāmin, Metiochus and Parthenope (?)
	Early Islamic period	High	High	Yes	Bijan and Manijeh, Vis and Rāmin, Vāmiq u ʿAḏhrā,
	(Golden Age)				Varqa u Gulshāh, Shirin and Khosrow, and Layla and
					Majnun
	Late Islamic period	High	High	Yes	Shirin and Khosrow, Layla and Majnun
	(Timurid and
	Sassanid dynasties)
	Pre-Islamic period

  [START_REF] Cross | The poetics of romantic love in "Vis & Rāmin[END_REF]. The poetics of romantic love in "Vis & Rāmin" [PhD Thesis]. The University of Chicago.[START_REF] Davis | Vis o Rāmin[END_REF]. Vis o Rāmin. Encyclopaedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/vis-o-ramin Gallais, P. (1974). Genèse du roman occidental: Essais sur Tristan et Iseut et son modèle persan (Vol. 1). Tête de feuilles: Sirac. Hägg, T., & Utas, B. (2003). The virgin and her lover: Fragments of an ancient Greek novel and a Persian epic poem (Vol. 30). Brill. Meisami, J. S. (2014). Medieval Persian court poetry. Princeton University Press. Stoneman, R., Erickson, K., & Netton, I. R. (2012). The Alexander romance in Persia and the East (Vol. 15). Barkhuis.

  Persian Literature in the Safavid Period. The Cambridge History ofIran, 6, 948-964. Seyed-Gohrab, A. A. (2009). Leyli o Majnun. Encyclopaedia Iranica.

Meisami, J. S. (2014)

. Medieval Persian court poetry. Princeton University Press.

[START_REF] Miquel | Majnûn et Laylâ[END_REF]

. Majnûn et Laylâ: L'amour fou (Vol. 14).

Sindbad. Safa, Z. (1986)

.

  de Fouchécour, C.-H. (2006). Classical Persian Literature. In Encyclopedia Iranica: Vol.. Losensky, P. (2009). Poetics and Eros in Early Modern Persia : The Lovers' Confection and The Glorious Epistle by Muhtasham Kāshānī. Iranian Studies, 42(5), 745-764. Yarshater, E.(1986). Persian poetry in the Timurid and Safavid periods. The Cambridge History ofIran, 6,

Table 12 : Relative level of romantic love by area, by period and by story line (predicted and observed)

 12

	Periods
		Examples (source in parenthesis)	Prediction Observation
	Source period	Rewriting period
	Early Roman	Early Islamic Period Vāmiq u 'Adhrā (Metiochus and	Mixed	Mixed
	Empire (Greek)	Parthenope), Iskandarnameh (Alexander
		romance)
	Abbasid Caliphate	Early Islamic Period Leili o Majnun (Layla and Majnun)	Mixed	Mixed
	(Arabic)
	Story

lines from Early Roman Empire (Greek) to the Early Islamic Period There

  are at least two known cases of rewriting of Greek literature from the Roman period: Vāmiq u 'Adhrā from the Greek novel Metiochus and Parthenope[START_REF] Hägg | The virgin and her lover : Fragments of an ancient Greek novel and a Persian epic poem[END_REF] and the many versions of the Alexander romance, notably as a part of the Shahnameh and in Nizami's Iskandarnameh(Stoneman et al., 2012; Zuwiyya, 2011). The lack of good data about economic and social development in Medieval Persia prevent us from making any prediction. In any case, the level of romantic love in the Persian versions appear to be close to A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages. Brill.

	Hägg, T., & Utas, B. (2003). The virgin and her lover: Fragments of an ancient Greek novel and a Persian epic
	poem (Vol. 30). Brill.
	Müller, S. (2008). Asceticism, Gallantry, or Polygamy? Alexander's Relationship with Women as a Topos in
	Medieval Romance Traditions. The Medieval History Journal, 11(2), 259-287.
	Southgate, M. S. (1977). Portrait of Alexander in Persian Alexander-romances of the Islamic era. Journal of the
	American Oriental Society, 278-284.
	Stoneman, R., Erickson, K., & Netton, I. R. (2012). The Alexander romance in Persia and the East (Vol. 15).
	Barkhuis.
	Zuwiyya, D. (2011).

their Greek Roman model: romantic love is at the center of Vāmiq u 'Adhrā, just as in Metiochus and Parthenope

[START_REF] Hägg | The virgin and her lover : Fragments of an ancient Greek novel and a Persian epic poem[END_REF]

while military adventures and individual exploits remains at the center of the Persian versions of the Alexander romance (see in particular Southgate, 1977 for Alexander's sexual exploits). It must be noted though that the polygamous love adventures of the Persian Alexander differ from the monogamous (if underdeveloped) stories of the Western European Alexander, either with Roxane

(Müller, 2008)

or Candace

(Gaullier-Bougassas, 1991)

.

Gaullier-Bougassas, C. (1991)

. Alexandre et Candace dans le Roman d'Alexandre d'Alexandre de Paris et le Roman de toute chevalerie de Thomas de Kent. Romania, 112(445), 18-44.

  . Ayyūqī. In Encyclopedia Iranica: Vol. III (p. 167-168). Rubanovich, J. (2016). In the Mood of Love: Love Romances in Medieval Persian Poetry and their Sources. In Fictional Storytelling in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond (p. 67-94). Brill. Seyed-Gohrab, A. (2020). Longing for Love: The Romance of Layla and Majnun. A Companion to World Literature, 1-12. Seyed-Gohrab, A. A. (2009). Leyli o Majnun. Encyclopaedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/leyli-o-

	majnun-narrative-poem
	6. LATIN WORLD (300 BCE -500 CE)
	Medieval Europe.
	ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
	An upward trend can be detected in Italy from at least 500 BCE up to 200 CE. During this
	period, population in Roman Italy doubled from around 4 to 8 millions (Lo Cascio &

LITERARY FICTIONS: TIMELINE AND GENERAL REMARKS

The span of the Latin literature is shorter than the Greek literature, starting with the first roman epics (Odusia, Bellum Punicum) and the first play writers (Plautus, Terence) in the late 3 rd c. BCE, reaching a peak during the 1 st c. BCE and 1 st c. CE with Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, Statius and slowly declining from the 3 rd c. on with late writers such as Claudian or Prudentius writing in the 5 th c. CE. Europeans continue writing in Latin during the Medieval period, but following the historical conventions, we discuss these work in the section about

  . After 200 BCE, all economic indicators (shipwrecks, building inscriptions, lead pollution, wood finds, coins in circulation, etc.) demonstrate that the level of development of the Mediterranean area started to decline importantly around the 3 rd c. CE, although this was probably less important and delayed until the 4 th c. in Egypt or Northern Africa(Bowman, 2011b;[START_REF] Ward-Perkins | The fall of Rome : And the end of civilization[END_REF].

	Period	Economic Development	HRL stories (predictions)	HRL stories (observations)	Examples of love stories
	Roman Republic	High	Yes	Yes	Plautus and Terence's comedies
	Early Empire	High	Yes	Yes	Pyrasmus and Thisbe, The Aeneid, Orpheus and Eurydice, Cupid and Psyche
	Late Empire	High	No	No*

Table 15 : Relative level of romantic love by period and by genre (predicted and observed)

 15

	Genre	Early period	Late period	Prediction	Observation
			Roman Republic (Livius Andronicus, Naeviu, Ennius)	Stable	Stable*
		Archaic Greece (ex: Iliad)	Early Roman Empire (ex: the Achilleid)	Increase	Increase
			Late Early Empire (Claudian' De raptu Proserpinae)	Increase	Increase
	Epic		Roman Republic (Livius Andronicus, Naeviu, Ennius)	Decrease	Decrease
		Hellenistic Greece (ex: The Argonautica)	Early Roman Empire (ex: the Achilleid)	Decrease	Unknown
			Late Early Empire (Claudian' De raptu Proserpinae)	Decrease	Unknown
		Early Roman Empire (ex: The Aeneid)	Late Early Empire (Claudian' De raptu Proserpinae)	Decrease	Decrease
	Comedy	Hellenistic Greek world (Menander) Roman Republic (Plautus, Terence)	Decrease	Decrease/ Stable*
	Tragedy	Classical Greece (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides)	Early Roman Empire (Seneca)	Stable	Stable
	Novels	Greek novels	Roman novels	Decrease	Decrease

  , the first Roman epics do not give an important place to love. The epics of Livius Andronicus, Naevius and Ennius are all martial in nature[START_REF] Goldberg | Early Republican Epic. A Companion to Ancient Epic, 429-439. Epic: Hellenistic period and Early Roman Empire seriously (…). Menander, by contrast, shows widowers still grieving their wives[END_REF].

Economic development is both periods is difficult to quantify, but Maddison's estimate of Roman economic development in 300 BCE and Ober's estimate of Greek economic development in 700 BCE seem similar (1,5 subsistence level). If this was the case, this would predict a similar level of romantic love in both literatures. In line with this prediction

[START_REF] Goldberg | Early Republican Epic. A Companion to Ancient Epic, 429-439. Epic: Hellenistic period and Early Roman Empire seriously (…). Menander, by contrast, shows widowers still grieving their wives[END_REF]

. Early Republican Epic. A Companion to Ancient Epic, 429-439.

Table 16 : Relative level of romantic love by area, by period and by story line (predicted and observed)

 16

	Periods
			Examples (source in parenthesis)	Prediction	Observation
	Source period	Rewriting period
			Ovid's Metamorphoses (Greek
	Archaic Greece	Early Roman Empire	myths), Heroides (Iliad, Odyssey, Greek myths), Argonautica by	Increase	Increase
			Flaccus (Greek myth)
			Medea (Medea), Phaedra
	Classical Greece Early Roman Empire	(Hippolytus), Agamemnon (Agamemnon), Oedipus (Oedipus	Stable	Stable
			Rex)

Story lines from Hellenistic period Greece to the Early Roman Empire One

  final case is Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, which is clearly a rewriting of Apollonius' Argonautica. Compared to his model, the work is markedly less romantic and gives much more importance to war and martial adventures:

	Fontaine, M. (2014). The Terentian Reformation : From Menander to Alexandria. Fontaine and Scafuro, 2014,
	538-554.
	James, S. L. (2020). Plautus and the Marriage Plot. A Companion to Plautus, 109-121.
	Konstan, D. (1986). Love in Terence's Eunuch : The origins of erotic subjectivity. The American Journal of
	Philology, 107(3), 369-393.

Valerius' Jason surpasses his Apollonian alter-ego in leadership, bravery, and martial prowess, that is, in all the traditional qualities associated with the epic ego. In other words, Valerius has recuperated the character of Jason, giving him brains and brawn in addition to beauty. This Jason, although a romantic figure, is not primarily a love hero. The motto of Apollonius' Jason us 'Make Love, Not war', but that of Valerius' Jason is 'Make Love and War (not necessarily in that order'.

(Hershkowitz, 1998, p. 125)

Thus, while Flaccus' Argonautica is definitely a romantic epic, contrary to his Archaic models, it is not as romantic as its Hellenistic counterpart. Hershkowitz, D. (1998). Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica. Oxford University Press. 7. CHINA (300 CE -1800 CE) LITERARY FICTIONS: TIMELINE AND GENERAL REMARKS Unlike in Europe and India, narrative fictions are relatively rare in the early Chinese literature (Eastern Zhou, Spring and Autumn period)

.

  Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction. Chinese University Press. Mair, V. H. (2001). The shorter Columbia anthology of traditional Chinese literature. Columbia University Press. Mair, V. H. (2012). The Columbia history of Chinese literature. Columbia University Press.

  Lanselle, R. (2015). Introduction à la traduction du Pavillon de l'ouest. In Le Pavillon de l'ouest. Les Belles Lettres. https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/livre/1476-le-pavillon-de-l-ouest Mair, V. H. (2012). The Columbia history of Chinese literature. Columbia University Press.Song, G. (2004). The fragile scholar : Power and masculinity in Chinese culture (Vol. 1). Hong Kong University Press.West, S., & Idema, W. (1995). The story of the western wing. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Table 20 : Relative level of romantic love by period (predicted and observed)

 20

	Earlier period	Later period	Prediction	Observations
	Jin Dynasty	Tang Dynasty	Increase	Increase
	Tang Dynasty	Song/Yuan dynasties	Increase	Increase
	Song/Yuan dynasties	Ming Dynasty	Increase	Increase
	Ming Dynasty	Qing Dynasty	Mixed	Mixed

  The Story of Yingying, a chuanqi (short story) by Yuan Zhen (around 800)

	2. The Story of Yingying, a guzi ci (drum song) by Zhao Lingzhi (1051-1134)
	3. The Story of the Western Wing in All Keys and Modes, a zhugongdiao (ballad) by
	Dong Jieyan (fl. 1190)
	4. The Story of the Western Wing, a zaju (play) by Wang Shifu (1250-1337)
	5. The Story of the Western Wing, a zaju edited to be read by Jin Shengtan (1610-
	1661)

Table 21 : Relative level of romantic love by area, by period and by story line (predicted and observed) Periods Examples (source in parenthesis) Prediction Observation Source period Rewriting period Tang China

 21

	Song China	The Story of the Western Wing in All	Increase	Increase
		Keys and Modes (The Biography of
		Yingying), Tears on a Blue Gown
		(The Lute song)
	Yuan China	Wang Shifu's The Story of the	Increase	Increase
		Western Chamber (The Biography of
		Yingying)
	Ming China	Jin Shengtan's The Story of the	Increase	Increase
		Western Wing (The Biography of
		Yingying -Jin Shengtan's version)

  [START_REF] Dong | The Many Faces of Cui Yingying[END_REF]. The Many Faces of Cui Yingying. Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques, 75-98. Lanselle, R. (2015). Introduction à la traduction du Pavillon de l'ouest. In Le Pavillon de l'ouest. Les Belles Lettres. https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/livre/1476-le-pavillon-de-l-ouest Mair, V. H. (2012). The Columbia history of Chinese literature. Columbia University Press.

  . From Baghdad to London : Unraveling Urban Development in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, 800-1800. Review ofEconomics and Statistics, 95(4), 1418-1437. Chaney, E. (2016). Religion and the rise and fall of Islamic science.Work. Pap., Dep. Econ., Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA. Fouquet, R., & Broadberry, S. (2015). Seven centuries of European economic growth and decline. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(4), 227-244. McEvedy, C., Jones, R., & others. (1978). Atlas of world population history. Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England. https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19792702472 Morris, I. (2013). The measure of civilization : How social development decides the fate of nations. Princeton University Press. https://books.google.fr/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=uahKmtRcOEQC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=morris+civilizatio n&ots=PvU3yxNluf&sig=-huhDcBQLgkENToDLwIapkhDdIE Pamuk, Ş., & Shatzmiller, M. (2014). Plagues, Wages, and Economic Change in the Islamic Middle East, 700-1500. The Journal of Economic History, 74(01), 196-229. Van Bavel, B., Buringh, E., & Dijkman, J. (2018). Mills, cranes, and the great divergence : The use of immovable capital goods in western Europe and the Middle East, ninth to sixteenth centuries.

	The Economic History
	Review, 71(1), 31-54.
	CATEGORICAL METHOD (ABSENCE/PRESENCE OF HRL STORIES)

Table 24 : Predicted and observed presence of HRL Stories by period

 24

	Period	Economic Development	HRL stories (predictions)	HRL stories (observations)	Examples of HRL stories
	Pre-Islamic and early	Low	No	No
	Islamic period
	Abbasid Caliphate	High	Yes	Yes	Layla and Majnun, Jamil and Buthayna, Qays
	(Classical period)				and Lubna
	Post-classical period	High	Yes	Yes	Sirat 'Antar

Table 25 : Relative level of romantic love by period (predicted and observed)

 25

	Earlier period	Later period	Prediction	Observations
	286 Pre-Islamic and early Islamic period	Abbasid period	Increase	Increase
	287 Classical period	Post-Classical period	Decrease	Decrease

Table 26 : Relative level of romantic love by area, by period and by story line (predicted and observed) Periods Examples (source in parenthesis) Prediction Observation Source period Rewriting period Late Roman Greek world

 26

	Classical period	Sīrat al-Iskandar (Historia Alexandri Magni)	Increase	Stable*

  The Cambridge history of early medieval English literature. Cambridge University Press. Mantello, F. A. C., & Rigg, A

The Cambridge history of Spanish literature. Cambridge University Press. Hasty, W., Reinhart, M., Becker-Cantarino, B., Hill, D., Richter, S., Mahoney, D. F., Koelb, C., Downing, E., & Stoehr, I. R. (2004). Early Germanic literature and culture (Vol. 1). Boydell & Brewer. Lees, C. A. (2012).

  . New versions of Tristan and Iseult and Floris and Blancheflore continue to be written. And new stories appear. Novels such as Ponthus et Sidoine, Cleriadus et Meliadice, Jehan d'Avennes, Gilles de Chin, Olivier de Castille tell the story of a young knight who accomplish many exploits inspired by his love for a noble woman. Other stories such as Paris and Vienne and Pierre de Provence go on with the tradition of Floire and Blancheflore and Aucassin and Nicolette in which an adolescent couple deeply felt reciprocal love of and struggled to marry in the face of parental opposition

  L'Astrée and La Princesse de Clèves in France, Romeo and Juliette in England, Amadis, Diana and Cervantes' novella (e.g. La gitanilla, The English Spanish Lady) in Spain or Orlando Innamoroto in Italy. In a systematic study, Greinier (Greiner, 2017), for instance, surveyed the titles of the novels published in France from 1585 (end of the religious wars) to 1650 (preceding the success of L'Astrée). He found that among the 640 novels published during this period, 359 titles refer to romantic love. This success is also visible in the plays of Shakespeare, Molière, Lope de Vega and Hooft (see below the comparison between Ancient plays and Modern plays). This trend goes on up to the end of the period with major successes like La Nouvelle Heloise in France or Pamela in England.

Table 28 : Relative level of romantic love by period (predicted and observed)

 28

	Earlier period	Later period	Prediction	Observations
	Early Medieval period	Central Medieval period
	England		Increase	Increase
	France		Increase	Increase
	Germany		Increase	Increase
	Italy		Increase	Increase

  [Late Medieval] novels take the initiative in love and are able to manage on their own in the world of work, if circumstances require it (Méliadice becomes a maid, Maguelonne works in the hospital she founds, (…) Sidoine defends a besieged castle). (Otis-Cour, 2005, p. 288).

	Thus, at least for France, Hypothesis 2 is validated.
	Otis-Cour, L. (2005). Mariage d'amour, charité et société dans les «romans de couple» médiévaux. Le moyen âge,
	111(2), 275-291.

  ." Mme de la Fayette's La Princesse de Clèves is one of the first examples of a character confessing her love to herself.Daumas, M. (1996). La tendresse amoureuse aux XVIe-XVIIe siècles.Perrin. Greiner, F. (2017). Les Amours romanesques de la fin des guerres de religion au tempsde L'Astrée (1585de L'Astrée ( -1628) ) Fictions narratives et représentations culturelles. Classiques Garnier. https://doi.org/10.15122/isbn.

	978-
	2-37312-021-9
	COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME GENRE

Table 29 : Relative level of romantic love by period and by genre (predicted and observed)

 29

	Genre	Early period	Late period	Prediction	Observation

period and Early Modern period

  Unlike Latin epics such as the Aeneid and the Achilleid, the Iliad and the Odyssey were not available in Medieval Europe until their translation from Greek during the 14th c. It is only with their printed versions in the late 15th c. that they started to have a profound impact on the arts(Dué, 2005). Thus, we consider only the influence of Archaic and Hellenistic epics on Early Modern epics, and not on Medieval epics.In contrast to the Archaic epics, the epics written in Early modern Europe frequently involves a romantic plot. This is the case for many famous works of the periods such as The Faerie Queene by Spencer in English, the Franciade by Ronsard or the Henriade by Voltaire in French, Orlando Furioso by Ariosto and La Gerusalemme Liberata by Tasso in Italian, Jerusalén conquistada by Lope de Vega in Castilian. German and Dutch epics are lesser known. Yet, some of them have a clear romantic nature. For instance, Cort Begryp der XII Boecken Olympiados, a Dutch epic, later adapted in German 'cast as a dream in which the poet has to overcome numerous obstacles before he can be united with his beloved Olympia, the incarnation of virtue and beauty'(Meijer, 2012, p. 55).

	Dué, C. (2005). Homer's Post-Classical Legacy'. A Companion to Ancient Epic, 397-414.
	Meijer, R. (2012). Literature of the low countries : A short history of Dutch literature in the Netherlands and
	Belgium. Springer Science & Business Media.

  Vita Marini in France, Karolus magnus et Leo papa and Waltharius in Germany, Gesta Berengarii imperatoris and De bellis Parisiacae urbis in Italy. None of them tell a love story.

	Roberts, M. (2001). The Last Epic of Antiquity : Generic Continuity and Innovation in the" Vita Sancti Marini" of
	Venantius Fortunatus. Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), 131, 257-285.

  Chevalier, J.-F.(2013). Neo-Latin Theatre in Italy. In Neo-Latin Drama in Early Modern Europe (p. 25-101).Brill. Rivera, E. F. (2014). Celestina as Closet Drama. In A Companion to Early Modern Hispanic Theater (p. 5-17).

Early Roman Empire and Late Medieval period

  Symes, C. (2016). Ancient Drama in the Medieval World. A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama, 97-130.The first tragedy written in Italy was Albertino Mussato's Ecerinis (1314), a tragedy based on Seneca as a model (especially Octavia), and not on a Greek model (still not well known at the time). It depicts the cruel deeds of Ezzelino III da Romano (1194-1259) against Padua. Unlike later tragedies, romantic love does not play an important role(Schironi, 2016).Schironi, F. (2016). The Reception of Ancient Drama in Renaissance Italy. A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama, 131-153.

Tragedy:

Table 30 : Relative level of romantic love by area, by period and by story line (predicted and observed) Periods Examples (source in parenthesis) Prediction Observation

 30

  Plautus' Menaechmi was rewritten by Rotrou (Les Ménechmes, 1631), Shakespeare (The Comedy of Errors, 1594), and Goldoni (The Two Venetian's Twins, 1747). His Cistellaria influenced Ariosto's Cassaria (1508) and his Aulularia influenced Molière's The Miser (1668). Terence's Andria rewritten by Machiavelli (Andria, 1520) and Steele (The Conscious Lovers, 1722).

lines from Roman Empire (Latin) to Central Medieval Europe The

  Schironi, F. (2016). The Reception of Ancient Drama in Renaissance Italy. A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama, 131-153. Wyles, R. (2016). Ancient Drama in the French Renaissance and up to Louis XIV. A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama, 154-172. Latin story lines inspired many Medieval works: Virgile's Eneid inspired the Roman d'Eneas (in French, Dutch and German), Lucain's Pharsale lead to the Roman de Jules César and the Greek and Latin's versions of the Alexander Romance (collection of legends concerning the exploits of Alexander the Great) lead to many medieval adaptations in Old French (Roman d'Alexandre, Alexandreis, Roman d'Alexandre en prose), Middle English (King Alisaunder, Prose Life of Alexander), Early Scots (The Buik of Alexander), Castilian (the Libro de Alexandre), Central German (Alexanderlied), etc. (Note: Eneide by Heinrich von Veldeke is counted as both a Dutch and a German work as it was originally composed for a patron in the Rhineland or eastern Netherlands, but completed at the court of Hermann, landgrave of Thuringia.

	Story

Story lines from Central Medieval period to the Early Modern period

  Orlando Innamorato will be followed by another, more famous work inspired by Roland, namely the Orlando furioso by Ariosto which in turn inspired many operas by Vivaldi, Rossi, Puccini, Lully, Handel or Haydn[START_REF] Laradji | La légende de Roland: de la genèse française à l'épuisement de la figure du héros en Italie. Editions L'Harmattan[END_REF] Wikipedia contributors, 2020).Another example of Early Modern reworking of a Central medieval story line is the Spanish tradition of Tristan. During the 16 th c., new versions such as Tristán el Joven and Tristán de Leonís are composed. These new versions are more romanic than the previous Late Medieval versions in Spanish (Códice de Tristán) (on the Spanish Renaissance versions, seeTorre, 2015).

	Laradji, A. (2008). La légende de Roland: de la genèse française à l'épuisement de la figure du héros en Italie.
	Editions L'Harmattan.
	Wikipedia contributors. (2020, August 26). The Song of Roland. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved
	10:04, August 27, 2020

  Welsh literature goes back to at least the 6 th century with poets like Taliesin and Aneirin(Evans & Fulton, 2019). However, what survives are essentially non-narrative works such as praise poems for rulers and lords of Welsh dynasties. It is only from the 11 th c. that the first narrative works begin to emerge with tales such as Culhwch and Olwen (Davies

	Comparative Literature Studies, 335-351.
	15. WALES (500 -1800)
	LITERARY FICTIONS: TIMELINE AND GENERAL REMARKS

Hsia, A. (1988)

. « The Orphan of the House Zhao » in French, English, German, and Hong Kong Literature.

Table 35 : Relative level of romantic love by area, by period and by story line (predicted and observed)

 35

	Periods
			Examples (source in parenthesis)	Prediction Observation
	Source period	Rewriting period
	Central Medieval france	period Welsh Central Medieval	(Yvain, the Knight of the Lion) Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain Geraint and Enid (Érec et Énide),	Decrease	Decrease
	Central Medieval	Welsh Central Medieval	Beves of Hampton (Ystorya Bown	Decrease	Unknown
	England	period	de Hamtwn

  Mhaonaigh, M. N. (2006). The literature of medieval Ireland, 800-1200 : From the Vikings to the Normans. na. óCathasaigh, T. (2006). The literature of medieval Ireland to c. 800 : St Patrick to the Vikings. na.ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTBefore the 19 th c., economic indicators are very limited for Ireland. Yet, the basic facts about economic development are relatively well established. During the early medieval period and Viking era (500 -1000), economic development is very low. Population probably grow very little(McEvedy et al., 1978) and urbanization is almost non-existent(Campbell, 2008).From 1100 on, urbanization, political stability, population and trade increase, like in the rest of Western Europe(Campbell, 2008; McEvedy et al., 1978). In 1300, Dublin has 11 000 inhabitants, followed by Kilkenny (4500 inhabitants) and Wexford (1500 inhabitants). Yet, most of the country remained very poor. For instance, per capita money supply is only a quarter that of Scotland and a fifth that of England: 'This is consistent with the continuing role of cattle as a measure of wealth and store of value, the importance of barter in commercial exchange, and the modest contribution of earnings from foreign trade to the Irish economy.'(Campbell, 2008) Even compared to less developped areas such as Wales and Scotland, Ireland remained 'a materially far poorer country'(Campbell, 2008). One way to compare Ireland to the rest of the British Island is religious architecture : 'Even its many churches and cathedrals, with a few notable exceptions, were small and architecturally unpretentious. The two most impressive, the twin Dublin cathedrals of Christ Church and St Patrick's, were modest by English, Scottish, and even Welsh standards.'(Campbell, 2008) Economic development increased during the Late Medieval period and Early Modern period, especially in the area under English authority. During the Early Modern period, and especially during the late 17th and 18th c., Ireland economic development increased a lot with Dublin going from 11 000 inhabitants in 1650 to 90 000 in 1750 and Cork going from 2 000 to 58 000 inhabitants. Ireland eventually caught up with Western Europe in the 17 th c. For instance, the per capita consumption of books, a good indicator of economic development, reached the average level of Western Europe in 1700 although, in comparison with England, Ireland always remained less populated, less urbanized and less economically developed than its bigger neighbor(Campbell, 2008).

	Campbell, B. M. (2008). Benchmarking medieval economic development : England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland,
	c. 1290 1. The Economic History Review, 61(4), 896-945.
	McEvedy, C., Jones, R., & others. (1978). Atlas of world population history. Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth,
	Middlesex, England.
	CATEGORICAL METHOD (ABSENCE/PRESENCE OF HRL STORIES)

Table 41 : Predicted and observed presence of HRL Stories by period

 41

	Period	Economic Development	HRL stories (predictions)	HRL stories (observations)	Examples of HRL stories
	Early Medieval period	Low	No	No

  [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]. The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature. Cambridge University Press.Moser, C. (1992). The Cambridge history of Russian literature. Cambridge University Press. TorresPrieto, S. (2011). Arthurian Literature in east slavic. The Arthur of the North: The Arthurian Legend in the Norse and Rus' Realms, 196.

Konstan, D. (2014). Sexual symmetry : Love in the ancient novel and related genres. Princeton University Press.

This change is all the more striking that: 'Apart from the important addition of the love element (which gives the story a much sharper, more personal focus), the actual shape of the New Comedy thus remains very similar to that of the Old Comedy. The story is still about the resolution of a conflict: some state of darkness and confusion giving way, through 'recognition' and a change of heart, to reconciliation and light.'[START_REF] Booker | The seven basic plots : Why we tell stories[END_REF] This suggests that the change in the importance of love cannot be due to any internal evolution of the genre of the comedy, but rather must be the product of a change in the preference of the audiences. It is possible that this trend went on during the 3 rd and 2 nd c. BCE. However, very few documents are available for this period[START_REF] Le Guen | The Diffusion of Comedy from the Age of Alexander to the Beginning of the Roman Empire[END_REF][START_REF] Scafuro | Comedy in the late fourth and early third centuries BCE[END_REF].

Symes, C. (2016). Ancient Drama in the Medieval World. A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama, 97-130.

Frangoulis, H.(2014). Du roman à l'épopée : Influence du roman grec sur les Dionysiaques de Nonnos de Panopolis (Vol. 1287). Persée-Portail des revues scientifiques en SHS.Cadau, C. (2015). Studies in Colluthus' Abduction of Helen.Brill.

We thank Sylvain Brocquet for these observations.

We thank Gérard Fussman for this observation.

[START_REF] Hsieh | Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction[END_REF]. Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction. Chinese University Press.Inglis, A. (2013). Luo Ye's" Zuiweng tanlu" and the Culture of Romance. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, 97-122.Lévy, A. (1996). La Chine romanesque.Fictions d'Orient et d'Occident. Rouzer, P. (2020). Articulated Ladies. BRILL.Shih, C. (2015). Golden Age of Chinese Drama: Yuan Tsa-Chu. Princeton University Press.Song, G. (2004). The fragile scholar: Power and masculinity in Chinese culture (Vol. 1). Hong Kong University Press.

Shih, C. (2015). Golden Age of Chinese Drama : Yuan Tsa-Chu. Princeton University Press.Song, G. (2004). The fragile scholar: Power and masculinity in Chinese culture (Vol. 1). Hong Kong University Press.

Huang, M. W.(2001). Desire and fictional narrative in late imperial China (Vol. 202). Harvard Univ Asia Center.Lee, H. (2006). Revolution of the heart : A genealogy of love inChina, 1900-1950. Stanford University Press.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For their expertise in history of literature and their reading the Ancient Literary Fictions Values Survey, we thank Monica Balda-Tillier, Geraldine Barnes, Beverly Brosser, Sylvain Brocquet, Jean-Baptiste Camps, Nadia Cattoni, Maggie Childs, Christine Chojnacki, Christinia Cleary, Brett Cook, Helen Cooper, Margrét Eggertsdóttir, William Farris, Emmanuel Francis, Hélène Frangoulis, Helen Fulton, Gérard Fussman, Dominic Goodall, Iyas Hassan, Lee Haiyan, Daniel Hsieh, Alister Inglis, Corinne Jouanno, R. Keller Kimbrough, Jay D. Konstan, Rainier Lanselle, Romina Luzi, Manling Luo, Richard Martin, Denis Matringue, Keith McMahon, Gregory Nagy, Pirosca Nagy, Hana Navratilova, Daniel Negers, Paola Orsatti, Francesca Orsini, Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, Francesca Schironi, Valeria Sobol, Chloe Starr, Daniel Sävborg, Raffaele Torrella, Susana Torres Pietro. The Survey does not necessarily reflect their views.

novels in the Hellenistic and Roman Greek world may be underestimated (S. Stephens, 1996). As Michael Reichel (p. 430) notes about the love story between Pantheia and Abradatas (370 BCE), It is very likely that similar stories circulated in the tradition of oral story-telling, in the form of folk-tales, legends or Märchen. If it was not the Pantheia episode itself that influenced the storyline of the later novels, it can at least beconsidered as an early testimonium of an archetypal story-pattern that had a major impact on the rise of the genre of the novel. (Reichel, 2010)

From the 3 rd c. on, the Latin literature are in decline, paralleling the economic decline of the Roman Empire. The production is very low. A few works involve romantic relationships (e.g. Claudian ' De Raptu Proserpinae) but no love story can be found [START_REF] Parkes | Love or war? Erotic and martial poetics in Claudian's de Raptu Proserpinae[END_REF]Tsai, 2007). This is somewhat surprising as, despite its decline, the Latin part of the Roman Empire remains economically developed (but see Ward-Perkins, 1995). [START_REF] Parkes | Love or war? Erotic and martial poetics in Claudian's de Raptu Proserpinae[END_REF]. Love or war? Erotic and martial poetics in Claudian's de Raptu Proserpinae. Classical Journal,The,110(4), 471-492. [START_REF] Tsai | Hellish Love : Genre in Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae[END_REF]. Hellish Love : Genre in Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae. Helios, 1(1), 37-68.

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

Roman Republic versus Early Roman Empire

In line with hypothesis 2, works from the Late Republic appear to be less romantic than the works from the Early Empire. While the plays of Plautus and Terence are undeniably love stories, and sometimes express symmetrical and intense romantic feelings (Brown, 1993;Rudd, 1981), they remain less romantic, less symmetrical, less reciprocal, less intense than the short stories and the novels of the Early Roman Empire:

'New Comedies have plots which are built around a young man's sexual affair. These affairs are always presented from the point of view of the young man, whose emotions are continually on display as the plots determines whether or not he will get (or keep or regain) the object of his attentions. The woman who is the object of his attention is usually just that, the object of his attentions.' [START_REF] Rosivach | When a young man falls in love : The sexual exploitation of women in New Comedy[END_REF] As Konstan notes:

'Seduction as such in unknown to the genre of New Comedy, since a citizen is not represented as the subject of desire, and in the case of noncitizen women, sex is treated as a negotiable thing (…). (Konstan, 2014b, p. 145) In a New Comedy, the girl cannot express their feelings. Even if she does, 'her marriage will be arranged by her father or the responsible male head of the household, and her original, autonomous desire will abide only as a memory allowed to her in her former station.' (Konstan, 2014b, p. 145) Another interesting case would be the comparison between Hellenistic and Roman epics regarding the importance of love. Although there are comparisons between specific epics such as Apollonius' Argonautica and Flaccus' Argonautica (see below Story lines from the Hellenistic period Greece to the Early Roman Empire), to the best of our knowledge, there is no study focusing specifically on the case of romantic love (Nelis, 2001).

Nelis, D. P. (2001). Apollonius and Virgil. In A Companion to Apollonius . Brill.

Epic: Hellenistic period and Late Roman Empire

The case is similar as Epic: Hellenistic period and Early Roman Empire (Foley, 2008) Foley, J. M. (2008). A companion to ancient epic. John Wiley & Sons.

Epic: Early Roman Empire and Late Roman Empire

Unlike for the preceding comparaisons, here is no doubt that De Raptu Proserpina is much less romantic than the works of Ovid or Virgil [START_REF] Parkes | Love or war? Erotic and martial poetics in Claudian's de Raptu Proserpinae[END_REF]Tsai, 2007). To quote again Wheeler, Claudian 'epicizes his erotic material', insisting more on war than on love (Wheeler, 1995, p. 123). [START_REF] Parkes | Love or war? Erotic and martial poetics in Claudian's de Raptu Proserpinae[END_REF]. Love or war? Erotic and martial poetics in Claudian's de Raptu Proserpinae. Classical Journal, The, 110(4), 471-492. Tsai, S. K. (2007). Hellish Love : Genre in Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae. Helios, 1(1), 37-68. [START_REF] Wheeler | The Underworld Opening of Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae[END_REF]. The Underworld Opening of Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae. Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), 125, 113-134.

Comedy: Hellenistic period and Roman Republic

Unlike the Ovid's short stories or Virgil's epics, the Latin comedies were written during the Late Republic, two centuries before the high point of the Roman development. Hypothesis 3 thus predicts that Latin comedies should be less romantic than their Greek counterparts in particular (Latin comedies were not inspired by the Old Comedy so it does not make sense to compare them to Aristophanes' play).

In line with hypothesis 3, historians of Latin theater observe that Plautus' plays are less romantic than their Greek models:

'Plautus has, in fact, little interest in romantic or sentimental love among the young, or in establishing new citizen families. Even in the few plays that bother to marry off two young people already in love (Cistellaria, Curculio, Poenulus, Rudens), the lovebirds do not dominate the stage action. As W.S. Anderson demonstrates, in Plautus plots, the heroic clever slave often upstages the lover. In other plays [Truculentus, Aulularia, Trinummus], (…) it is never clear that the bride wants to marry her bridegroomindeed, in some cases, she might not. [START_REF] James | Plautus and the Marriage Plot[END_REF] Another difference between Plautus and the Greek comedies that inspired him is his cynic attitude toward love and affection within the family:

What is striking in Plautus is the total absence of affection by older husbands for their wives, who -without exception -tale their marriages and their family duties very CATEGORICAL METHOD (ABSENCE/PRESENCE OF HRL STORIES)

The earliest period for which there is enough narrative fictions is the Jin dynasty. Since economic development is already relatively high and remains high during the entire period, Romantic Love Stories are thus expected to be present during the entire period of study. et al., 1978). Urbanization went from 2,8% to 10,6% with the most affluent countries such as England and the Netherlands reaching 20%. Finally, GDP per capita went from around $600 to $1100 with the most affluent countries (Holland, England) reaching $2000, a level that was unprecedented in the history of human societies. Other indirect indicators such as book production per capita point toward the same direction, with European countries producing around 20 manuscripts per million people in 800 but more than 900 manuscripts per million people in 1500 when printing was invented (Buringh & Van Zanden, 2009).

This economic affluence translated in higher standards of living. A range of different

Story lines from Archaic Greece to Central Medieval Europe

In the original story of the Trojan War (or at least in the earliest extant versions), romantic elements are rare if not absent. Set during the 10-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, the Iliad recounts the battles and events during the weeks following the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. When the Iliad evokes erotic passion, it is usually from the male point of view, and the audience's attention is directed not to the love story but to its political and social consequences (for a recent behavioral approach to the Iliad, see Gottschall, 2008).

Medieval authors rewrote the Greek archaic epics. Love had played no substantial part in Dares": heroes had been attracted to heroines (and vice versa) on account of their beauty, not the nobility of their souls ( § §10, 27). Helen had been besotted, not quite in love, with Paris only to regret it later ( §11). Love had not inspired magnificent deeds: nothing good had come out of Achilles' passion for Polyxena but betrayal and death ( § § 27, 30, 34).

Benoît, by contrast, centralised love -and courtly love at that. He interlinked four love affairs (Jason-Medea, Paris-Helen, Achilles-Polyxena and Diomedis/Troilus-Briseida) with the Trojan War which he turned to a chivalric campaign. The narrative relied on the idea that nobility in rank and soul ended in prowess in the battlefield, which in turn entailed, according to courtly conventions, true love. Benoît's characters were no longer the one-dimensionally fierce warriors of Dares, but were capable of delicacy and yearning. (Yiavis, 2016) The War of Troy was a very popular story line in the Central Medieval period. In Italy, the et al., 1978) and urbanization was almost non-existent (Campbell, 2008).

From 1100 on, urbanization, political stability, population and trade increased (Campbell, 2008;Dimmock, 2005;McEvedy et al., 1978), suggesting an increase in economic development. However, at the end of the Central Medieval period, urbanization is still very limited (on a par with Ireland) with the biggest city, Cardiff, having around 2000 inhabitants (Campbell, 2008). Thus, even with a very low threshold for urbanization at 2 000 inhabitants the urbanization rate of Wales in 1290 was still around 1%. As Campbell writes about the Celtic areas of the British Isles:

Perhaps a million people still lived beyond the manorialized, parochialized, and market-focused ambit of English life in Welsh Wales, Highland Scotland, and Gaelic Ireland. They adhered to laws, beliefs, social structures, value systems, and modes of reciprocity and exchange that were profoundly different from those prevailing in those commercialized and monetized, tax-and tithe-paying, arable-farming lowlands, firmly controlled by Church and state. (Campbell, 2008) In relative terms, Wales caught up with the rest of Britain only in the end of the 19 th c. in terms of urbanization and development (Campbell, 2008;Dimmock, 2005;McEvedy et al., 1978). During the later 19th century, Wales was a country of net immigration, due to the expansion of the coal and steel industries in south and north-east Wales (Williams, 1985). However, it must be noted that despite this undeniable development, Wales as a whole remained less populated, less urbanized and less economically developed than England, and even than Ireland and Scotland. (1985). When Was Wales? Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England. Early Medieval period a similar phenomenon). However, many examples of romantic love, modelled on French courtly love, are to be found in the rich tradition of medieval Welsh court poetry in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

CATEGORICAL METHOD (ABSENCE/PRESENCE OF HRL STORIES)

Early Modern period

With the growing importance of English in Welsh literature, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the preferences of the Welsh and the English. Only texts written in Welsh can be unambiguously attributed to a Welsh audience. However, these texts are becoming increasingly marginal, especially among the elite. Literature is becoming an increasingly unreliable tool. It is striking though to see the emergence of romantic love story such as the Welsh adaptation of Chaucer's Troylus and Creseida in the form of a play (Evans & Fulton, 2019). Evans, G., & Fulton, H. (2019). The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature. (Cambridge). Cambridge University Press.

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

Medieval and Early Modern period

As for Ireland, economic development would predict an increase in romantic love in Welsh literature from the Early Medieval period to the Central Medieval period to the Late Medieval period. However, because few romantic stories were written during these periods, such a prediction is difficult to test. To the best of our knowledge, there is no academic work on the subject.

By contrast, the difference between the Late Medieval period and the Early Modern period is easier to evaluate for there are indisputable romantic love stories in the later period such as the Welsh adaptation of Chaucer's Troylus and Creseida in the form of a play (Evans & Fulton, 2019).

Evans, G., & Fulton, H. (2019). The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature. (Cambridge). Cambridge University Press.

COMPARATIVE METHOD BETWEEN SIMILAR STORY LINES

standards of living of mots Japanese and the accumulation of a considerable surplus in the hands of many. The low rate of population growth was not due primarily to famines and the economic misery that led people to limit their number of children through infanticide, but rather to the desire to maintain and improve their standard of living, and thereby their relative status in the village. ' (Hanley, 1991) In line with these demographic observations, school enrolment data in 1868 suggest a high rate of human capital with 43% literacy rate for males and 19% for females, a remarkably high level by early modern standards (Hayami et al., 2004). Other studies have also pointed to the existence of a dynamic book publishing industry and book rental market as well as near ubiquitous presence of bookkeeping and accounting practice among business and domestic households, and the widespread use of farm manuals (Baten et al., 2010;Baten & Van Zanden, 2008;Hayami et al., 2004).

CATEGORICAL METHOD (ABSENCE/PRESENCE OF HRL STORIES)

When Japanese literature starts developing, during the Nara and Heian periods, Japan is already a relatively developed culture with a large capital and a literate elite. Writers are not found only in the clerical class, and both men and women are producers of literary works. This thus predicts that love stories are likely to be present in the Nara and Heian periods and throughout the Japanese history of literature. During the Nara period, love is very important in poetry (in the Man'yōshū for instance). However, it is less so in narrative works such as in the tales contained in works like Kokiji and Nihon Shoki. However, there are lots of love stories and some of them, such as the tragic love story of Prince Kinashi no Karu and Princess Karu no Ōiratsume, are especially symmetric. Because of their love affair, the prince was sent in exile where his sister followed him. After a long exchange of love poems, the two lovers both commited suicide, just as the 17th and 18th c. lovers in Japanese Kabuki (Kato & Sanderson, 2013, p. 49;Keene, 1999, p. 51). Kato, S., & Sanderson, D. (2013). A History of Japanese Literature : From the Manyoshu to Modern Times. Routledge. Keene, D. (1999). Seeds in the heart : Japanese literature from earliest times to the late sixteenth century.

Columbia University Press.

Heian period (794-1185)

Love is central in the literature of the Heina period (Keene, 1999a;[START_REF] Reddy | The making of romantic love : Longing and sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, 900-1200 CE[END_REF]. For instance, the most famous monogatari of the period -the Genji monogatari -revolves around the romantic adventures of its hero, the prince Genji. Although the Genji monogatari does not tell symmetric, fully reciprocal love stories, a few lesser known stories are built around a love story. This is the case in the Ochikubo monogatari, an adaptation of the tale of Cinderella where great emphasis is placed on the long-term love between the two main characters. The Tale of Takamura (10th c.) is another example, as shown by the end of the novel:

'It was impossible for the lovers to meet, but Takamura one night discovered a crack in the wall of the girl's room through which they could talk until dawn. The girl, in despair, refused all nourishment and a few days later she died. That night Takamura lay weeping in his room, lit only by a dim candle, when he sensed something stirring nearby. It was an apparition that spoke with his half-sister's voice, telling of her griefs.

The apparition disappears at dawn, but for twenty-nights it returned. Afterward, it appeared only occasionally and its form became indistinct. When three years had passed Takamura no longer saw his half-sister even in dreams.' (Keene, 1999a, p. 465) Keene, D. (1999). Seeds in the hear: Japanese literature from earliest times to the late sixteenth century. Columbia University Press. [START_REF] Reddy | The making of romantic love : Longing and sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, 900-1200 CE[END_REF]. The making of romantic love: longing and sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, 900-1200 CE. University of Chicago Press.

Kamakura period (1185-1333)

Although love poems are still written, narrative love fictions seem to disappear during the medieval Kamakura period [START_REF] Kato | A History of Japanese Literature: The First Thousand Years[END_REF]Keene, 1999aKeene, , 1999c;;Shirane & Suzuki, 2015;Sieffert, 2001). It is notable that this cannot be due to a lack of literary materials (as for instance in the case of the early European medieval period). Many fictions from the Kamakura period are well known and well-studied today (Keene, 1999a). For instance, it is during this period that was written the Tale of Heike, one of the most famous works of Japanese literature. However, the Tale of Heike, as well as many other tales of warfare written during this period, focuses on political struggles and military battles. [START_REF] Kato | A History of Japanese Literature: The First Thousand Years[END_REF]. A History of Japanese Literature: The First Thousand Years. Tokyo: Macmillan. Keene, D. (1999a). Seeds in the heart : Japanese literature from earliest times to the late sixteenth century. Columbia University Press. [START_REF] Shirane | The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature[END_REF]. The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature. Cambridge University Press. Shuichi, K. (1979). A History of Japanese Literature : The First Thousand Years. Tokyo: Macmillan. [START_REF] Sieffert | Treize siècles de lettres japonaises. Publications orientalistes de France. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Literature and estimate for economic indicators both start with the periods of Nara (710-794) and Heian (794 -1185)[END_REF]. Treize siècles de lettres japonaises. Publications orientalistes de France.

Muromachi period (1333-1568)

During the Muromachi period, love stories are notably present through the genre of short stories (Otogi-zōshi) of which over four hundred stories survive. For instance, in Utatane no Sōshi (A Tale of Fugitive Dreams), a young noblewoman, receives a romantic gift in a dream, but is unable to identify her dream suitor. When she next sleeps, she dreams that she meets the young man, described as more beautiful than the Genji. However, he must leave and she is still unable to learn his identity before his departure. She will finally meet the stranger accidentally when she crosses a bridge and fall into the river.

'Providentially, a boat is passing and the lady is rescued. Aboard the boat, as we might have guessed, is Sadaisho. Seeing her in the flesh for the first time, he is dazzled by her beauty, even more striking than in a dream, and she, overcome with joy, forgets her embarrassment. They are united and, we are told, their descendants prosper mightily.' (Keene, 1999a) Keene, D. (1999a). Seeds in the heart : Japanese literature from earliest times to the late sixteenth century.

Columbia University Press.

Edo period (1600-1868)

During the Edo period, love stories become increasingly popular. The domestic plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon are without doubt the best example. In The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (1703) or in The Love Suicides at Amijima (1720), Chikamatsu tells the story of two young people who cannot be together because of social and political situations. However, because their love is so intense, they both commit suicide rather than live without their love. Importantly, these plays were extremely popular in 18 th century Japan [START_REF] Keene | Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu[END_REF], which suggests that the depiction of love as a central value was in line with the preferences of the audience. It should be noted that Chikamatsu is not the only one to tell the story of double suicide, nor the first one. The first love suicide in drama can be dated back to 1683 (Keene, 1999c). In the 18 th c., Ki no Kaion, a contemporary of Chikamatsu, wrote Shinju Futatsu Haraobi (The love suicide with two sashes) in 1722, and the idea of double suicide will attract other dramatists such as Chikamatsu Hanji and Takeda Bunkichi with Shinju Kamiya Jihei (1778) which actually has a happy ending and in which the couple doesn't have to commit love suicide. The popularity of double love suicide as well as the success of many other romantic plays such as Godairiki Koi no Fûjime (The Love Letter Sealed with the Five Great Guardian) clearly shows the taste of the Japanese audience for love stories.

Love stories are also present in the prose literature. One of the most celebrated stories of the early Tokugawa period is Uraminosuke (1612), a love story between the young samurai COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

Nara period and Heian period

Although romantic stories are present from the beginning of the Japanese literary tradition, they should become more romantic over time, following economic development. There is no systematic study of the evolution of romantic love in Japanese literature, although it is undeniable that the narrative works of the Heian period (e.g. Genji Monogatari) are more romantic than the Kojiki for instance. Love is much more central and emotions are more important (Kato & Sanderson, 2013, p. 49;Keene, 1999, p. 51). Kato, S., & Sanderson, D. (2013). A History of Japanese Literature : From the Manyoshu to Modern Times. Routledge.

Kamakura period and Muromachi period

The works of the Muromachi period appear more romantic than the work of the Kamakura period. Unlike during the Kamakura, it is possible to find narrative works centered around a romantic relationship [START_REF] Kato | A History of Japanese Literature: The First Thousand Years[END_REF]Keene, 1999aKeene, , 1999c;;Shirane & Suzuki, 2015;Sieffert, 2001). This is also visible through the rewritings of the warrior tales of the Kamakura period (see below, Comparative method during the same genre). [START_REF] Kato | A History of Japanese Literature: The First Thousand Years[END_REF]. A History of Japanese Literature: The First Thousand Years. Tokyo: Macmillan. Keene, D. (1999a). Seeds in the heart : Japanese literature from earliest times to the late sixteenth century. Columbia University Press. [START_REF] Shirane | The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature[END_REF]. The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature. Cambridge University Press. [START_REF] Sieffert | Treize siècles de lettres japonaises. Publications orientalistes de France. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Literature and estimate for economic indicators both start with the periods of Nara (710-794) and Heian (794 -1185)[END_REF]. Treize siècles de lettres japonaises. Publications orientalistes de France.

Muromachi period and Edo period

It is more complicated to compare the Muromachi and the Edo periods for both of them produced romantic and symmetric stories. Since no systematic study has tackled this question, no comparison can be made.

Heian period and Edo period

Aside for this purely chronological comparison, Alain Walter compared romantic stories in the Heian and Tokugawa periods in [START_REF] Walter | Érotique du Japon classique[END_REF]. In comparison with Edo works (those of Saikaku and Chikamatsu for instance), the monument of the early Japanese literature, the Genji monogatari, is strikingly non-romantic. Consider for instance the end of The Love Suicides at Sonezaki by Chikamatsu where the two lovers both commit suicide because they cannot love each other in this world:

'Thus, at the end of such an ordeal, after having gone through such contradictory and intense feelings, after an experience as intense and terrifying as that of killing a loved one, lovers reach an extraordinary dimension. (...) Emotion has been brought to such heights that it becomes a passion in the etymological sense of the term and is enough to absolve, to justify a whole life, however dull and bad it may be.' [START_REF] Walter | Érotique du Japon classique[END_REF] By contrast, in the Genji Monogatari, romantic relationships are much less exclusive and symmetric:

'The prince will have had romantic relationships with ten specific women; but the novel alludes to a lot of anonymous passers-by. During his exile, for example, there is no domestic, no servant who does not do herself the honor of offering him his favors.' [START_REF] Walter | Érotique du Japon classique[END_REF] 'The Gengi, for his part, cockles his father, his elder brother, and tries to take one of his son's wives (the former priestess Ise). He himself will be deceived by his very young and last wife.' [START_REF] Walter | Érotique du Japon classique[END_REF] 'For the Japanese lover of the Heian era, love comes and goes... The memory, a later encounter, a reported comment, a surprise scene can suddenly revive this love that we thought had died.' [START_REF] Walter | Érotique du Japon classique[END_REF] Some have even use the term 'rape' to describe some of Genji's behaviors and there is a debate about the nature of coercion and manipulation in the Genji (Childs, 1999(Childs, , 2010)). In any case, the kind of erotic relationships found in the Genji contrasts very much with later narratives of the Tokugawa era. Japanese Language and Literature, 44(2), 119-148. [START_REF] Walter | Érotique du Japon classique[END_REF]. Érotique du Japon classique. Gallimard.

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME GENRE

Hypothesis 3 could not be tested. There are very few good test cases to compare similar genres across time in Japan literary history because a few genres are present in several periods. There is a relatively long theater tradition, however the Noh, the Kabuki and the Jōruri differ importantly from each other in terms of generic constraints.

One way to see the evolution of romantic stories could be to study the evolution of a specific genre during the Tokugawa period, that is during the period where economic development increased the most. During this period appeared gesaku fictions, literally 'playful composition', a new kind of popular literature using colloquial Japanese. In the beginning of the 18 th c., the most popular sub-genre where the sharebon, humorous stories about the pleasure quarters. Keene note that: 'There is a curious absence of love or desire in these books. The customers, unlike the unhappy heroes of Chikamatsu's tragedies, do not think of the prostitutes as objects of love or seek to obtain sole possession of their favors. They consider such behavior crude and contemptible; for them lightness and detachment, rather than depth of feelings, were the hallmarks of tsù [connoisseurs] behavior.' (Keene, 1999c) By contrast, fifty years later, a new genre appeared, the ninjōbon, in which love is much more important.

'The scene was normally set in the licensed quarters, just as in the sharebon, but the hero was no longer the connoisseur who wins admiration by his perfect knowledge of the demimonde. Instead, he was a handsome young man, often the eldest son of a rich merchant family, whose chief distinction was his ability to win the love and devotion of the prostitutes. It was the height of boorishness for the hero of a sharebon to fall in love, but in the ninjōbon he might not only fall in love but even marry.' (Keene, 1999c) 'The prostitutes of the sharebon hardly emerged as distinct personalities. They treated upstart customers with disdain, but rarely displayed any real affection even for the tsù. The authors of the ninjōbon, on the other hand, made every effort to impart distinctive traits to their women.' (Keene, 1999c) 'Each is in love with a particular man, and shows not only her devotion but her jealousy of other women. The heroes of the ninjōbon are described as men for whom many women are eager to make great sacrifices, but they are not heroic in any other sense.' (Keene, 1999c) In half a century, there was thus a clear shift from non-romantic love affaires to fully romantic stories. Keene, D. (1999). World within walls: Japanese literature of the pre-modern era, 1600-1867 (Vol. 1). Columbia University Press.

COMPARATIVE METHOD BETWEEN SIMILAR STORY LINES

Story lines from Kamakura period to the Muromachi period

The Tale of Heike (Kamakura period) inspired many subsequent works, many of which romanticized the original tale and transformed it into a love story. The most popular of these rewriting is probably the Jōruri Monogatari (1485), which tells the love story between Jōruri and Yoshitsune, military commander of the Minamoto clan of Japan and one of the main characters of the Tale of Heike. While the Tale of Heike focuses exclusively of the military feats of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, the Jōruri Monogatari uses the original material to tell a perfectly romantic story:

'The story relates how Yoshitsune, a fugitive from his brother Yoritomo, arrives at the village of Yahagi and hears rumors about Lady Jōruri, who lives there. He finds her house and peeps into the garden. One glance at Jōruri, seated among her attendants and making sweet music, and he falls in love. Noticing that the flute part is missing

Early Medieval period

Love is present in the Irish literature from the very beginning, notably in the forms of poetry (see for instance Comracc Líadaine ocus Cuirithir). Yet, the low level of economic development of Early Medieval Ireland predicts that the presence of HRL stories should be limited in the Irish literature. This is the case (Ní Mhaonaigh, 2006;'Ó Cathasaigh', 2006).

Old Irish tales deal with the major events in the life of an individual, such as comperta (conceptions), aitheda (elopements), tochmarca (wooings), echtrai (expeditions to the Otherworld), immrama (sea voyages), and aitte/aideda (violent deaths). Others relate momentous or cataclysmic events in the social and political history of population groups, such as catha (battles), tomadmann (eruptions), tochomlada (migrations), oircne (slaughters, destructions), togla (destructions) and ta ńa bo ́ (cattle raids) which gave its title to the most famous tale of Ireland, Ta ín Bo ́ Cu áilnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley).

One apparent exception to the absence of love stories is the tale of Deirdre, often called "Deirdre of the Sorrows". However, this an artifact due to modern reworking of the old tale (The title "Deirdre of the Sorrows" is actually from Synge and Yeat's 1909/1910 work).

While the modern reworking is a love story, the original story, called Longes mac nUislenn ("The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu") dated from the 9 th c. is much closer to an antique tragedy in the sense that its focus is more on status, honor and revenge.

The original story opens at a banquet in the house of King Conchobar's storyteller, Fedlimid, whose wife is "full with child." As the pregnant woman is going to bed, the yet-unborn child screams "in her womb," frightening everyone present at the feast. A druid, Cathbad, places his hand on the woman's belly and makes the following prediction: "It is a woman child who is here: Deirdre shall be her name, and evil woe shall be upon her." After the baby is born, the predictions become more specific: this future woman's beauty will ultimately cause the exile of the three sons of Uisliu and the departure of Fergus. The men of Ulster first wish to kill her. However, in an attempt to defy the prophecy, the king orders that she will be reared in isolation until she will be "ready for Conchobar's bed." Eventually, Deirdre grows up and meets Naoise. The two escape together, but Conchobar's warriors catch them and kill Naoise. Deirdre commits suicide by throwing herself from a chariot, dashing her head to pieces against a rock.

The modern versions, read by modern readers, are strikingly different. Although the basic structure of the story does not change much between the most ancient medieval version and the modern one, the importance of feelings and love evolve considerably. Consider for instance the scene in which Deirdre and Naoise first meet. In Charlotte Brooke's 1816 version, Naoise, who is described as a "gallant" young man, is introduced to the wellmannered Deirdre through the intermediary of her preceptor, Leavarcam, who urges him to "free the fair captive" from her fortress and promises that in return he shall be free to "make her his wife." Brooke's Naoise indeed delivers Deirdre from her tower, and their first encounter soon develops into feelings of mutual respectful love, naturally leading to marriage:

Gráinne's attitude also contrasts with Iseult's:

By herself Grainne provides a significant contrast to Isolt. She refuses to remain with Fionn ostensibly because he is too aged, whereas Isolt turns from King Mark for other reasons, not necessarily because he is too old, for, in fact, the king possesses great beauty and, besides, as is known, he has a deep love for his spouse. Gráinne, it may be said, appears as a true femme fatale, a strong woman moving imperiously toward her own goal of power and sensuality. (Cormier, 1976, p. 595) In other words, the impetus of the story is not the love between Gráinne and Diarmuid, but rather the desire of a strong and independent woman (Gráinne) to leave an aged husband and elope with a younger man. As Cormier (Cormier, 1976) suggests, the theme is not the conflict between fated love and duty (as in Tristan and Iseult), but rather the personal feud or struggle between Fionn, the aged ruler, and Diarmaid, his best warrior.

Comparing Tristan and Iseult with Deirdre and Naoise, and Finn and Gráinne, Gallais reached the same conclusion:

In the Irish story, it is the woman who takes the initiative. Does she feel love for the young man she is forcing, through her geis, to take him away? Perhaps, but his first concern is to escape from an odious marriage and leave, duly accompanied and protected. Above all, it is a refusal of marriage, of the conventional and political union wanted by the girl's parents (Diarmaid and Grainne) or decided by a king to avoid or mitigate prophesied disasters (Noise and Deirdre). But one thing is certain: the hero does not love the one who imposes herself on him in this way to lead him into rebellion and exile, and to certain death; he will never love her, even if he lies with her. (Gallais, 1974, p. 90 the translation is ours)

Gallais concludes: "These stories are therefore not love stories, but -indeed, and only -'kidnapping' or 'pursuit.' In short, a variety of the genus 'Razzia.'" (Gallais, 1974, p. 90 the translation is ours).

In line with this idea, Tomás Ó Cathasaigh (2014) has observed that although the beginning of the tale does concern itself with what would look like a love story (a young couple fleeing a situation that threatens their love together), the rest of the story is devoted to Diarmaid: his youth, his adventures as a member of the Fían, his feats during his elopement with Gráinne, and eventually, his death. As Ó Cathasaigh observes, Diarmaid's death does not result from his feelings for Gráinne. It rather results from the dispute his father, Donn ó Donnchadha, had with his steward and the duty Diarmaid had to defend his father and his own status.

From this perspective, as Cormier notes, the tale of Gráinne and Diarmaid is closer to a Greek tragedy than to a romance: the central theme of Diarmaid and Grainne is, like that of the Deirdre story, tragic drama, illustrating the overwhelming nature of geasa, before which humans are helpless. Such a view is reinforced, for example, by stressing Diarmaid's pathetic situation and the empathy expressed for it by Fionn's close associates. The triangle of tragic conflict here, then, is between fate (Diarmaid), passion (Gráinne), and duty (Fionn). From this perspective, it is a story of overpowering destiny, recalling the "human condition," and reminds us of a Greek conflict-tragedy between two great forces or loyalties. (Cormier, 1976) In this perspective, notes Edyta Lehmann (2010), Gráinne should not be considered as a "sexually symmetric" heroine, as suggested by the modern title. Instead, she is "a mere accessory to the completion of the tragedy which has its source a generation before."

This interpretation is confirmed by Gráinne's role in the tale:

In the beginning, the tale appears to be about the elopement of Gráinne and Diarmaid and the tragic resolution of the conflict caused by this elopement, but it then turns into a tale about Diarmaid and his relationship with Fionn and the Fían, finally employing Grainne's character again as the speaker of the concluding poem. The contrast between her character's indispensable presence in the beginning and conclusion of the tale and her virtual absence throughout the majority of the tale invite [sic] and necessitate [sic] a further look at the interplay between the appearances and disappearances of her character. (Lehmann, 2010) In the end, Gráinne is "an excuse for the telling of yet another story about the men of the Fían." As Lehmann notes, the older story of Diarmaid and Gráinne "is more accurately a story of Aongus (Diarmaid's foster father), Fionn, and Diarmaid, and the bonds of loyalty."

Early Modern period

During the Early Modern period, and especially durting the late 17th and 18th c., Ireland economic development increased a lot. In line with this economic development, romantic love stories started to be written in Ireland. They are mostly in English by Englishmen (Congreve's Incognita; or, Love and Duty Reconciled, Quarles' Argalus and Parthenia), and they may not reflect the interests of the Irish speaking communities. However, the literature in Irish also evolved toward more romanticism. For instance, Keating's reworking of the tale of Deirdre is closer to a romantic love story (Pereira, 2007). Pereira, L. (2007). Representing Éire [PhD Thesis]. University of Oxford.

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

Medieval periods and Early Modern period

Economic development would predict an increase in romantic love in Irish literature from the Early Medieval period to the Central Medieval period to the Late Medieval period. However, because few romantic stories were written during these periods, such a prediction is difficult to test. To the best of our knowledge, there is no academic work on the subject.

By contrast, the difference between the Late Medieval period and the Early Modern period is easier to evaluate for there are undisputable romantic love stories in the later period (Pereira, 2007). Pereira, L. (2007). Representing Éire [PhD Thesis]. University of Oxford.

COMPARATIVE METHOD BETWEEN SIMILAR STORY LINES

During the Central Medieval period, Irish scholars adapated Latin authors such as Vergil, Statius, Dares, Ovid and Lucan into Irish. However, these works-Imtheachta Aeniasa (The Adventures of Aeneas), In Cath Catharda (The Civil War, based on Lucan) and Togail na Tebe (The Destruction of Thebes)-are essentially historiographic, and were not considered as fiction . For instance, Erich Poppe has suggested that a medieval Irish version of the Aeneid, the Imtheachta AEniasa (before 1400 CE), ''was perceived as a historical narrative rather than as a literary epic or mere entertainment,'' and as such was rendered in a prose that had more in common with the historical works of Irish tradition than with Virgilian epic technique (Poppe, 1995: 1, cited in Armstrong, 2005). For this reason, there are excluded from this study (just as Geoffrey of Monmouth's De gestis Britonum or Historia Regum Britanniae is excluded).

Another potential case of literary transmission could have been from French to Irish. Howsever, there is no evidence for translation from French into Irish (Hollo, 2008). In the same way, the Arthurian legend does not seem to have inspired Irish writers. The sole proven Arthurian translation, by an unknown author, is based on an early English version (now lost) of the Quest for the Holy Grail.

From Central Medieval England to Central Medieval Ireland

The other case of literary transmission is from England to Ireland, with the translation and the adaptation of Bevis of Hampton and Guy of Warwick. To the best of our knowledge, there is no systematic comparison concerning the importance of romantic love in both version (unlike in Old Norse where love seems to be higher in Norway than in England) [START_REF] Poppe | Also, we did not include Ystorya Dared, a medieval work on the War of Troy, because this was regarded as a chronicle rather than a fictional romance[END_REF]. The Old Norse literature goes back to the 10 th century with the poems and stories of the Poetic Edda (e.g. Völuspá, Skírnismál). Its peak production occurred between the 12 th and the 14 th century with the writing of the Sagas. While most works were written in Iceland and Norway, Old Norse literature was also understood in Sweden and Denmark (the Swedish literatures really starts during the 14th c. with the Eufemiavisorna and is considered as a distinct literature). Thus, in Figure 1, the Old Norse area comprises Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. In principle, it could also include Greenland and other Norse settlements (Great Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man, Normandy, Newfoundland, the Volga and places in-between). However, for reasons of clarity, we do not include these regions on the map.

Scholars once believed that these sagas were transmitted orally from generation to generation until scribes wrote them down in the 13 th c. However, it is now believed the sagas were conscious artistic creations, based on both oral and written tradition, and they were composed sometimes long after the events they describe.

Another part of the Old Norse production occurred in Norway, in particular under the reign o Haakon IV (1217 -1263). Norwegian writers started to translate a large number of European works such as Tristan and Iseult, The Song of Roland or Flore and Blanchefleur that will later be named 'Chivalric sagas' (Riddarasögur).

After the 14 th , the Icelandic and the Norwegian literature entered "Four Hundred Years of Darkness" (Ibsen). During the period of union with Denmark, Danish replaced Norwegian and the university and cultural center of Denmark-Norway was Copenhagen. It only resurfaced as a literary language in the 19 th c.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Economic indicators are very limited for Iceland and Norway before the 19th century. In Iceland, social development was certainly very low during all the pre-industrial period: population did not increase after the first phase of colonization, density remained low, and urbanization was non-existent before the 20 th century.

The economic development of Norway is different. From the 10 th c. onward, and up to the 1250, population (McEvedy et al., 1978;[START_REF] Thun | Tree-ring growth shows that the significant population decline in Norway began decades before the Black Death[END_REF] as well as urbanization increased [START_REF] Gundersen | The economy of Norwegian towns c. 1250-1350. A comparative study of the economic functions of towns in Norway[END_REF][START_REF] Holt | What if the Sea were different? Urbanization in medieval Norway[END_REF]. The biggest city, Bergen may have had between 6 000 and 10 000 inhabitants in 1200, and a few other cities may have reached 3000 inhabitants (Oslo, Trondheim, Tønsberg). During its Golden Age (notably under the rule of Haakon IV), Norway was politically stable and had intense commercial relationships with the rest of Europe. Thus, although it remained less developed than the rest of Western Europe, its cultural developments in law, in architecture, in literature suggest that it was converging with Europe.

There is currently no quantitative estimate of Norway's GDP per capita during its Golden Age. However, it is possible to argue that Norway's level of economic development was very close to Western Europe in 1300. Population density and urbanization were of course very low. But for such a northern country, with a small population size (400 000 inhabitants, compared to 5 million for England for instance), these indicators may not be very reliable (Campbell, 2008).

One way to estimate Norway's level of economic development is to compare it to Scotland. Both countries are geographically, politically, economically and politically very close during this period (Northern Scotland was in fact a vassal of the Kingdom of Norway at some point). Also, they had had similar small population size (0,8 million for Scotland; 0,4 million for Norway) in comparison with more southern countries such as Germany, France and England.

In 1290, Scotland had not city over 10 000 inhabitants and even with a urban threshold of 2000 inhabitants, its urbanization rate must have been around 3% (Campbell, 2008), a number that is very similar and actually lower than Norway (5% according to [START_REF] Gundersen | The economy of Norwegian towns c. 1250-1350. A comparative study of the economic functions of towns in Norway[END_REF]). Yet, Scotland in 1290 may have been almost as developed as England:

Scotland's economy was apparently performing relative to that of England on the eve of the War of Independence. Scotland may have been far less densely peopled than its southern neighbour, even in its fertile agricultural lowlands. (…) Nevertheless, per capita, Scotland's money supply was almost three-quarters that of England and since 1250 may have been growing faster; (…) per capita, the value of Scotland's dutiable exports of wool, woolfells, and hides was almost on a par with, and in 1290 may conceivably have been even greater than, England's (…). (Campbell, 2008).

In light of this work, it may thus possible that Norway in 1300 with its vibrant economy might have been very converging with Western Europe.

Early Medieval period

Love is present in the Norse literature from the very beginning, notably in the forms of poetry.

Yet, the low level of economic development predicts that romantic love should be limited in Icelandic literature. It is indeed the case. In Strategies of passion, Bjørn Bandlien studied the evolution of love stories in Old Norse literature [START_REF] Bandlien | Strategies of passion : Love and marriage in medieval Iceland and Norway[END_REF]. He shows that, in the Early Medieval period, romantic relationships were in fact far from romantic. In the Poetic Edda, romantic relationships are conceptualized as battles:

Óðinn boasts that he won over the wills and desires of these women. That they showed strong opposition at first (as if they had had magical powers over nature) only serves to make his conquest more impressive.

Here is how Bandlien summarized one of the most famous 'love story' in Norse mythology: the story of the giantess Gerðr and the Vanir god Freyr.

The whole adventure is a struggle to win the woman's love, not just her sexuality. The means used is the magic called seiðr, which breaks down her opposition. (…) This love is not based on a romantic feeling but on a victory of the stronger will. ( 29)

Second, a woman is 'won' through material gifts and flattery. In Hávamál, the 'High One' (that is, Óðinn) explains how he manages to seduce women :

He has to speak fairly and offer money, the man who wants a woman's love; praise the body of the radiant woman: he who flatters gets. (p. 26).

Third, even when a man is loved by a woman, this relationship is still based on powerstruggle :

To love a woman is to be in her power. Therefore, Hávamál advises against depending on a woman's word. She is often untrue and tends to speak deceitfully, (27)

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

From Early Medieval Norway to Central Medieval Norway

The comparison between Early Medieval Norway and Central Medieval Norway is straightforward because stories are clearly more romantic in the later period. As Bandlien, Old Norse literature evolved from a works where 'romantic encounters in the contemporary sagas is that they are only included in connection with the struggle for power between chieftains' [START_REF] Bandlien | Strategies of passion : Love and marriage in medieval Iceland and Norway[END_REF] to works where the main plot concern a "love affair" [START_REF] Eggertsdóttir | The anomalous pursuit of love in Kormaks saga[END_REF]. In the same way, the Old Norse literature evolved from a situation where 'there was little distinction between love and sexuality' [START_REF] Bandlien | Strategies of passion : Love and marriage in medieval Iceland and Norway[END_REF] to a situation where 'bravery, honour, and love can function together' [START_REF] Bandlien | Strategies of passion : Love and marriage in medieval Iceland and Norway[END_REF]. Translators brought out elements they found particularly important, added new meanings, and cut episodes they did not find conducive to the progression of the story. This comparative work makes it possible to analyze how foreign stories of love were used and adapted to traditional attitudes. [START_REF] Bandlien | Strategies of passion : Love and marriage in medieval Iceland and Norway[END_REF].

The prediction is thus that the Norse stories will be less romantic than their European sources (Note: As for Irish works inspired by Dares' historiographical accountof the War of Troy De excidio Troiae, we did not Trójumanna saga because it is also inspird by De excidio Troiae rather than by a fiction like the Roman de Troie).

Story lines from Western European Central Medieval period to Central Medieval Norway

The prediction is that story lines imported from Western Europe to the Norse World should be less romantic. This issue is disputed. We will first present the evidence in favor of the prediction. Some scholars note that while these sagas stick to the European plot, the values of the characters are strikingly different:

'Their underlying ethos, however, radically differs from the idealistic values of European chivalric romance, since the riddarasaga hero has little sense of obligation beyond self-interest. Typically, he is a king's son, from Western or Eastern Europe, and the story chronicles his accession to the throne and the extension of his power, processes which entail either or both the restoration of his patrimony and the quest for a bride, travel to distant lands, battles against monstrous and human opponents, and the acquisition of new kingdoms.' (Barnes, 2000, p. 268) As for women:

CATEGORICAL METHOD (ABSENCE/PRESENCE OF HRL STORIES) Central and Late Medieval periods depicting romantic feelings and romantic actions such as declarations of love, ritualistic oaths, love sickness, romantic exchanges of letters and rings, and other elements conventional romantic behavior (Sobol, 2011). The translation of the French romantic work Le voyage de l' Isle d'Amour (1663) by Trediakovsky (1703_1769) is the other landmark of the emergence of romantic love in Russian literature [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]Moser, 1992;Reyfman, 1990;Sobol, 2011).

Romantic narratives flourished in the late 18 th and early 19 th c. with the development of Russian theater and Russian opera. The first operas stages in Russia, for instance, were La forza dell'amore e dell'odio and Sila lyubvi i nenavisti (The Power of Love and Hatred), two works clearly centered on romantic love. Similarly, in Sumarokov's tragedies (1740 -1780), the fundamental source of the conflict is the struggle between love and honor in the consciousness and behavior of the heroes. Also, the two-best eighteenth-century comedies, The Brigadier (1769) and The Minor (1781) contain romantic elements similar to the Western ones [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]Moser, 1992). The playwright depicts this struggle as the chief motivation behind their behavior [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]Moser, 1992)

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME LITERARY TRADITION

Medieval period and Early Modern period

The comparison betwen Medieval Russia and Early Modern Russia is straightforward because stories are clearly more romantic in the later period [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]Moser, 1992). [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]. The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature. Cambridge University Press. Moser, C. (1992). The Cambridge history of Russian literature. Cambridge University Press.

COMPARATIVE METHOD WITHIN THE SAME GENRE

Mikhail Lomonosov's (1711-1765) Petriads and Nikolai Kheraskov's (1733-1807) Rossiada are epics in the Classical tradition (Torlone, 2014). Thus, in principle, they could be compared to Ancient and Western epics. Yet, to the best of our knowledge, this has never been done.

Story lines from Classical Greek period to the East Slavic Medieval period

In the 18 th c., Russian literature started to emulate the Western literature, reusing the Latin and Greek plots to compose plays and operas. Just like in early modern Europe, this leads to the romanticizing of ancient plots. For instance, in Antigona, an opera by the composer Tommaso Traetta that premiered at the at the Imperial Theatre in Saint Petersburg in 1772, Creon eventually repent his action and repeal the death sentence. The opera ends with a marriage ceremony between the two lovers [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]Moser, 1992). [START_REF] Emerson | The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature[END_REF]. The Cambridge introduction to Russian literature. Cambridge University Press. Moser, C. (1992). The Cambridge history of Russian literature. Cambridge University Press.

Story lines from Early Roman Latin period to the East Slavic Medieval period Russia.

As with most European receptions of the Aeneid, the tragic pathos of Dido's love and suicide attracted Russian writers's attention and rewritten in the 18th c.