The History of Bad Ideas: The Romantic Hero

Today’s bad idea spans literature, film, pop culture and plenty else besides: David talks to literary critic and memoirist Catherine Taylor about what’s wrong with romantic heroes, from Byron and Heathcliff to James Dean and Jack Kerouac to Bridget Jones’s Mr Darcy and Andy Burnham. How did Romanticism give rise to the template for the brooding outsider who gets the girl? Which was the only Bronte sister to see through the myth? Why do romantic heroines get such a raw deal by comparison? And why does this idea lead to so much bad male behaviour?