Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography [Hardcover]

Stephen Knight (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003

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 engaging and 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...Knight's witty, accessible piece of cultural history takes us through the various transformations that Robin Hood's story has undergone." -- The Age, August 23, 2003

"...Robin Hood, the outlaw and eternal 'trickster,' is still evolving, having long ago transcended his national and historical origins." -- Salon.com, July 2003

"Knight valiantly conveys everything said and done about our hero since the last quarter of the 14th century..." -- The Globe and Mail, June 21, 2003

"The mythical character of Robin Hood has become an icon...Knight is extremely knowledgeable about his subject..." -- Library Journal, June 1, 2003

From the Inside Flap

"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, historian and novelist

"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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 247 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press; 1st Ed. edition (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801438853
• ISBN-13: 978-0801438851
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,151,627 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Development of a Necessary Hero, August 31, 2003

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography (Hardcover)

Every culture has need for stories about the outlaw hero. Odysseus, in way, was one, as was William Tell, and John Wayne as the Ringo Kid. Jesus's story certainly conforms to the myth of the "good outlaw," and a more contemporary version was Martin Luther King. The figure best known for being a hero and being an outlaw, however, has been with us for over six hundred years: Robin Hood. Now he has an authoritative life story: _Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography_ (Cornell University Press) by Stephen Knight. Knight, a professor of literature at Cardiff University, is an authority on all Robin Hood lore, but does not here restrict himself to the early ballads of Bold Robin. In a witty and universal tour of the legend, he takes in all the Hollywood and television versions, and even the parodies. Most of them stay quite close to the Robin Hood legend as it was formed in its early stages.

The question for any biographer of such a legend always is: "Did he really exist?" There is an eagerness to find a real human being who performed Robin's feats, or at least served as a starting point for the stories. But Knight doubts there was any real figure: "... it seems highly improbable, or at least unprovable, that a Mr. R. Hood ever existed." It is far more likely that the character in the ancient plays and poems "...is the original Robin Hood, real only in the sense that he is the focus of a real myth." The important thing is not the Robin Hood incarnate, but what tellers and audiences made of him. For those who needed monetary relief, he began not only to rob from the rich but to give to the poor. For those who were distressed over corruption, he especially robbed sleazy officials of the state and church. For those needing national or racial identity, he became Saxon against the bad Norman Prince John. In the twentieth century, he raised his bow against (metaphorically) Nazism and McCarthyism.

Robin Hood has been portrayed by Kermit the Frog (whose green made him a natural for the role). In _Time Bandits_ he was John Cleese, stiffly introducing himself: "Hello, I'm Hood," and going on to explain the nature of the poor he is bound to assist: "I'm sure you'll like them. Of course they haven't got two pennies to rub together but that's because they're poor." Robin's outfit received top billing in Mel Brooks's _Robin Hood: Men in Tights_; Knight explains the association of tights to the story thus: they were "originally deployed so that nineteenth-century actresses playing Robin could show their legs." The myth has proved powerful enough to survive much kidding, and not just recently; a 1600 play _Looke About You_, has the unique stage direction "Enter Robin Hood in the Lady Faukenbridge's gowne, night attire on his head." Knight, in a remarkable and witty study of the formation and re-creation 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.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hero every age has claimed, October 9, 2007

By 

Bobby Newman (Long Beach, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography (Hardcover)

Robin Hood is a cultural icon, one of those stories everyone believes they know. It would surprise causual readers, however, just how much of what we think we know about Robin Hood has changed across the years. Many of the stories surrounding the figure, for example, never discussed stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Stealing from the rich, maybe. Giving to the poor? Not so much. Knight has provided us with thorough scholarship, from the earliest ballads through the hollywood movies and television programs (across several countries). The eye for detail is apparent, right down to the fact that the actor playing "Will Scarlet O'Hara" in the "Men in Tights" send-up later wound up playing Hood himself in a Hercules/Xena type television series. Knight is a man who has done his homework! How and why each era claims Hood for its own, and just how this may or may not have corresponded to any true Robin Hood, if there was such a person, is explored. The book is indispensible for the bookshelf of any Hood fan. My only hope would have been for a bit more discussion of Howard Pyle, a personal favorite retelling.