Robin Hood in Greenwood Stood
Alterity and Context in the English Outlaw Tradition
Edited by Stephen Knight
These new essays uncover innovative topics like Robin’s relation with the cult of archery in the late Middle Ages, the purpose of the recently discovered 1670s’ Forresters manuscript of outlaw ballads, and what Thomas Love Peacock thought when in 1815 he met in Windsor Forest a man called Little John. Other essays explore the social
The Robin Hood tradition is a rich assembly of exciting stories, more than five hundred years old and still thriving. From medieval ballads of yeoman resistance and gentrified Renaissance stories of Lord Robin versus bad King John, the tradition survived lustily into modern film, through which Robin Hood, played by major stars like Fairbanks, Flynn, and Costner, has become a truly international hero of natural law. This richly varied tradition enables scholars to study how different periods have understood the concept of Robin’s noble resistance to wrongful authority. These new essays uncover innovative topics like Robin’s relation with the cult of archery in the late Middle Ages, the purpose of the recently discovered 1670s’ Forresters manuscript of outlaw ballads, and what Thomas Love Peacock thought when in 1815 he met in Windsor Forest a man called Little John. Other essays explore the social meanings and contexts of the texts, from the stark early ballads and their contacts with both Catholicism and Protestantism, through to modern excitements like the Kevin Costner film of 1991 and the links between Robin and Batman. Just as the five-hundred-year tradition of the Robin Hood story is alive today, so this collection shows how vital and varied is modern analysis of the myth of the best known and most loved of all the outlaws.
- Edited by Stephen Knight
Other Titles in this Series
The Lion, the Lily, and the Leopard
The Crown and Nobility of Scotland, France, and England and the Struggle for Power (1100-1204)
Volume 4
The Performance of Christian and Pagan Storyworlds
Non-Canonical Chapters of the History of Nordic Medieval Literature
Volume 3
Beyond Exclusion in Medieval Ireland
Intersections of Ethnicity, Sex, and Society under English Law
Volume 10
Conceptualizing the Enemy in Early Northwest Europe
Metaphors of Conflict and Alterity in Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Early Irish Poetry
Volume 6
Similar Books
A Late Antique Harrowing of Hell and Its Medieval Reception
Eusebius of Alexandria's Sermons 15 and 17 (CPG 5524; 5526) and their Latin Rewritings
Volume 99
Ars Prophetica
Theology in the Poetry of Twentieth-Century Hebrew Poets Avraham Halfi, Shin Shalom, Amir Gilboa, and T. Carmi
Innovation and Medieval Communities
The Circulation of Ideas and Practices in and out of the Town (1200-1500)
Volume 63
Medieval Debates on Foreknowledge: Future Contingents, Prophecy, and Divination
Acts of the XXVII Annual Colloquium of the SIEPM, Trento 12-15 September 2023
Volume 31
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
Power and Women in Southeast and Central Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (1300-1600)
Volume 10
Tradition, Interpretation, and Change
Developments in the Liturgy of Medieval and Early Modern Ashkenaz
