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The only figure in the "Dictionary of National Biography" who is said never to have existed, Robin Hood has taken on an air of reality few historical figures achieve. His image in various guises has been put to use as a subject of ballads, nationalist rallying point, Disney cartoon fox, greenclad figure of farce, tabloid fodder and template for petty criminals and progressive political candidates alike. In this deeply informed book, Stephen Knight looks at the different manifestations of Robin Hood at different times and places in a mythic biography with a thematic structure. The best way to get at the essence of the Robin Hood myth, Knight believes, is in terms not of chronological and generic progression but of the purposes served by heroes. Each of the book's four central chapters identifies a particular model of the hero, mythic or biographic, which dominated in certain periods and in certain genres, and explores their interrelations, their implications and their historical and sociopolitical contexts.
The only figure in the "Dictionary of National Biography" who is said never to have existed, Robin Hood has taken on an air of reality few historical figures achieve. His image in various guises has been put to use as a subject of ballads, nationalist rallying point, Disney cartoon fox, greenclad figure of farce, tabloid fodder and template for petty criminals and progressive political candidates alike. In this deeply informed book, Stephen Knight looks at the different manifestations of Robin Hood at different times and places in a mythic biography with a thematic structure. The best way to get at the essence of the Robin Hood myth, Knight believes, is in terms not of chronological and generic progression but of the purposes served by heroes. Each of the book's four central chapters identifies a particular model of the hero, mythic or biographic, which dominated in certain periods and in certain genres, and explores their interrelations, their implications and their historical and sociopolitical contexts.
IntroductionChapter 1: Bold Robin Hood
Bold and Strange
Glimpses of an Outlaw
Gatherings of Robin Hood
Rhymes of Robin Hood
A Proud Outlaw
Garlands for Robin HoodChapter 2: Robert, Earl of
Huntington
Toward a Lord
Dramatizing Gentrification
The Noble Earl on Stage
A Lady for a Lord
Lord Robert's Origin
Pastoral Lordship
Gentrified Broadsides
A Real Lord Robin
A Gentleman on the Eighteenth-Century StageChapter 3: Robin
Hood, Esquire
Transmitting an Outlaw
Romantic Yeoman
Lord of the Forest
A Novel Outlaw
Outside the MainstreamChapter 4: Robin Hood of Hollywood
The Outlaw on Screen
A Visual Image
Varying the Pattern
Alternative Screen Robins
Robin Hood in Fiction
A Schoolchild's Hero
The Outlaw in Historical Fiction
Marian Takes Over
History and Myth
Outlaw Identifications
Outlaw Politics
A Forest Spirit
How Many Robin Hoods?Notes
Works Cited
Index
Stephen Knight is Professor of English Literature at Cardiff University. Arguably the world's foremost authority on Robin Hood, he is the author of Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw and many other books, including several on the outlaw tradition.
For those of us who joined the merry-men (and women) of Sherwood
Forest when young, Mr. Knight's 'mythic biography' lets us revisit
our earlier selves with an enlarged vision of the romance of
liberty and equality that attracted us.
*New York Sun*
Knight valiantly conveys everything said and done about our hero
Robin Hood since the last quarter of the 14th century: every
ballad, poem, novel, opera, movie and TV series — his
Disneyfication and feminization, spoofs, lampoons, muppet and
politically correct versions included.... Such is the power of myth
that this catalogue yokes Robin Hood with Jesus Christ, Buddha,
Santa Claus, King Arthur, the Knights Templar, Jesse James, the
rural Australian outlaw Ned Kelly, Martin Luther King Jr. and the
protean tricksters of North American aboriginal lore.... If a
'Hoodie' ye be, thou shalt sally forth to liberate all the copies
thou canst.
*Globe and Mail*
Knight, in a remarkable and witty study of the formation and
recreation of a legend, shows that in times of oppression, Robin
Hood has always been there for us as resistance to authority. May
he ever fight on.
*Columbus*
Robin Hood, the outlaw and eternal 'trickster,' is still evolving,
having long ago transcended his national and historical
origins.
*Salon.com*
Stephen Knight's book documents the enormous scope of the
myth—revolutionary, reactionary, chivalric, homosexual, patriotic,
or whatever the audience will allow, even slapstick. A final mythic
trait of Robinalia is its ability to parody itself. Errol Flynn
defined the character for film: the animated Robin Fox in the
Disney cartoon imitates Flynn, and his was the voice, uncredited,
of Rabbit Hood in the 1949 Warner Brothers' cartoon. Prince of
Thieves was mocked by Princess of Thieves and Prince of Frogs, and
so on. Like any great myth, this is a tale that no one ever hears
for the first time.
*London Review of Books*
The mythical character of Robin Hood has become an icon through his
presence in popular culture for the last 600 years.... Knight is
extremely knowledgeable about his subject.
*Library Journal*
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