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Overview
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 have been put to use as a subject of ballads, a nationalist rallying point, Disney cartoon fox, greenclad figure of farce, tabloid fodder, and template for petty criminals and progressive political candidates alike.In this book Stephen Knight looks at the different manifestations of Robin Hood in different places and times. 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, that dominated in certain periods and in certain genres, and explores their interrelations, their implications, and their historical and sociopolitical contexts.
Editorials
Alexandra Mullen
There is an impressive amount of scholarship lying around in this book, but even more impressively Mr. Knight shepherds us through it without sinking into the bogs and fens of theoretical verbiage or the dead wood of old academic arguments.—The New York Sun
Library Journal
The mythical character of Robin Hood has become an icon through his presence in popular culture for the last 600 years. The Robin Hood that we know today-an altruistic figure, who along with his Merry Men robs from the rich to give to the poor-hasn't always been so. The character has undergone "endless variation in verbal and visual texts," according to Knight, a Robin Hood scholar. In this mythical biography, the evolution of the character from mere rogue to someone of noble birth is carefully examined, as is the addition of other standbys in the story, such as Maid Marion. The character of Robin Hood has been captured in many forms: poetry, verse, opera, theater, and, in recent decades, Hollywood films. Knight explains that to study Robin Hood through these artistic forms during different historical periods is akin to having a "guide to the changing patterns and dynamics of society and culture." Knight is extremely knowledgeable about his subject, but his book would really be of interest only to devout followers of this mythic character. Recommended for specialized academic collections.-Isabel Coates, CCRA-Toronto West Tax Office, Mississauga, Ont. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.From the Publisher
"Stephen Knight's astute, readable, and thoroughly researched analysis of the whole history of the Robin Hood phenomenon follows the hero from Sherwood bandit to Hollywood star, leader of an all-male band to object of feminist parody, Crusader to puppet frog. This is a book to be read by everyone interested in the growth of the Robin Hood story, and from which future scholars should take their bearings."-Helen Cooper, Oxford University"Stephen Knight's book about the noble-hearted outlaw has caught the spirit of its subject: fresh, forthright, engaged, witty. It is also richly packed with insights and scholarship. Robin Hood was a hero five hundred years ago; he's still undimmed, a most compelling version of the male hero."-Marina Warner
"Stephen Knight is the premier Robin Hood scholar in the world. Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography sets out the remarkable links and patterns that Knight was the first to trace or call attention to. It makes available all the rich and often surprising details, plots, and themes that increasingly attract writers, visual artists, and those interested in entertainment, children's literature, theatrical traditions, sociology, and folklore."-Thomas Hahn, University of Rochester
"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, 1 June 2003
"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 (Toronto), 21 June 2003
"Robin Hood, the outlaw and eternal 'trickster,' is still evolving, having long ago transcended his national and historical origins."-Salon.com, July 2003
"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, 22 July 2004
" 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, 21 August 2003
"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 (MS) Commercial Dispatch, 3 September 2003