As a part of this larger category, heroic romances are distinguished by their vernacular language, their celebration of chivalric adventure, and their taste for the exotic, remote, and miraculous.
These earlier works highlight the chivalrous actions of their heroes through hinting that they were well-known public characters of the day in romantic disguises.
When the drama, and in particular tragedy, was reinstituted in England, sentimental readers found a field for their emotions on the stage, and the heroic romances immediately began to go out of fashion.
However, they lingered for a quarter of a century more, and M. Jusserand has analyzed what may be considered the very latest of the race, Pandion and Amphigenia, published in 1669 by the dramatist, John Crowne.
[2] Their influence is still felt in literature today: J. R. R. Tolkien specifically disavowed the descriptor "novel" for his fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, preferring to call it a kind of "heroic romance".