Description
Book SynopsisKnight looks at the different manifestations of Robin Hood at different times and places in a mythic biography with a thematic structure. Each of the book's four central chapters identifies a particular model of the hero, mythic or biographic.
Trade Review 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.
-- Alexandra Mullen * 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.
-- Chris Scott * 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.
-- Rob Hardy * 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.
-- Wendy Doniger * 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 *
Table of ContentsIntroductionChapter 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
