Help for DGD homework

Tristan and Iseult?

Depends what is meant by unconventional.

I'm reading a series that starts with "The Beekeeper's Apprentice" by Laurie R King. Tomboyish girl of 15 walking on Sussex Downs trips over man of 50 who is watching bees, shocks him by deducing why he is watching them, as well as he could have done. He turns out to be Sherlock Holmes, she becomes his apprentice.

It is VERY platonic for the first several books, until she is in her twenties, so not exactly conventionally romantic, but certainly an odd couple, and a lot more strong bonds than a sweetie-pie romantic attachment.

We think it will have to depend on historical / social context. Thanks, bags!

Don't know if she's looking for 'classics' but springing straight to mind is 'Sacred Hearts' by Sarah Dunant.

It's a riveting story set in 16C Italy about a young girl forced into a convent whose weapon is her glorious voice. I'm not going to give away the plot but it is romantic and very suspenseful.

And it's unconventional.

And what about Charlotte Grey by Sebastian Faulks?

If I think of any more I'll post them later.

There's Pygmalion of course!

And if you want to be really unconventional there's The Well of Lonliness.

Brilliant! I keep texting them to her, so she has a good selection already. (Mum is an English teacher too, as was I!)

Oh, and how could I forget The Old Wives Tale, Arnold Bennett. A bit neglected now, but brilliant, I think.

And The French Lieutenant's Woman. John Fowles

Do soaps count as drama? Roy and Hayley in Coronation Street have a pretty unconventional marriage!

Tony and Maria...West Side Story

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger ......The Harry Potter books

Ken and Deidre....Coronation Street

Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar... Brokeback Mountain

Homer and Marge Simpson

Fred and Wilma Flintstone

Don't they just! But no, Greatnan!

A Certain Smile. Françoise Sagan

Why isn't a soap classed as drama? Just as a matter of interest lol.

John Betjeman's A Subaltern's Love Song?

Lady Chatterley's Lover

The Owl and the Pussycat?
Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester
Quasimodo and Esmeralda

Laurence Olivier, John Betjeman and Ian McKellan all rated Coronation Street very highly!

Grannylin I had completely forgotten Ladt Chatterley!!

Not poetry, folks!

VQ I think the definition of the word "drama" in this context is strictly linked to that of the "A" Level syllabus.

And there is also the question of the great canon of literature, and whether it exists or not - is there an order of what is "literature" worthy of study and what is not? Academics are often divided on this point.

Thank you all so much; I have sent her all your suggestions. Others have taken Jane Eyre and Quasimodo! She says to send her love to you all.

The Brokeback Mountain pair?

Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton now that was a classic modern drama if ever there was one.

Holmes and Watson?
jekyll and hyde?
I spotted my first lesbian couple in a TV advert this weekend! Bank advert that goes "I love my husband. I love my girlfriend. I love swimming. I hate swimming" Then you realise that not one glamorous woman but twins. Blink and you miss it.

Dorothea Brooke and Rev Edward Casaubon (Middlemarch)
Rosamunde Vincy and Dr Lydgate Ditto

I am guilty of re-reading 18th, 19th and early 20th century 'classics' to the detriment of more recent writing. My daughter is always telling me about modern novelists, or foreign writers. Surely good writing hasn't stopped?

Of course it hasn't! Read my first contribution in this thread. Try them and see.