Lesley Coote - Robin Hood and the Outlaw/ed Literary Canon

This cutting-edge volume demonstrates both the literary quality and the socio-economic importance of works on the matter of the greenwood over a long chronological period. These include drama texts, prose literature, novels (among them, childrens literature), and poetry. Whilst some of these are anonymous, others are by acknowledged canonical writers such as William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and John Keats. The editors and the contributors argue that it is vitally important to include Robin Hood texts in the canon of English literary works, because of the high quality of many of these texts, and because of their significance in the development of English literature.

Edited by Lesley Coote
University of Hull
Alexander L. Kaufman
Ball State University

Series Advisory Board:
Sayre N. Greenfield (University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg)
Kevin J. Harty (La Salle University)
Valerie B. Johnson (University of Montevallo)
Stephen Knight (University of Melbourne)
John Marshall (University of Bristol)
Joseph F. Nagy (University of California, Los Angeles)
Thomas H. Ohlgren (Emeritus, Purdue University)
W. Mark Ormrod (University of York)
Helen Phillips (Cardiff University)
Graham Seal (Curtin University)
Linda Troost (Washington and Jefferson College)
Charles van Onselen (University of Pretoria)

Outlaws in Literature, History, and Culture examines the nature, function, and context of the outlaw and the outlawedpeople, spaces, practicesin the premodern world, and in its modern representations. By its nature, outlawry reflects not only the outlawed, but the forces of law which seek to define and to contain it. Throughout the centuries, a wide and ever-changing, and yet ever familiar, variety of outlaw characters and narratives has captured the imagination of audiences both particular and general, local, and global. This series seeks to reflect the transcultural, transgendered, and interdisciplinary manifestations, and the different literary, political, socio-historical, and media contexts in which the outlaw/ed may be encountered from the medieval period to the modern.

Capturing the Pcaro in Words

Literary and Institutional Representations of Marginal Communities in Early Modern Madrid

Konstantin Mierau

Robin Hood and the Outlaw/ed Literary Canon

Edited by Lesley Coote and Alexander L. Kaufman

For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com

Edited by
Lesley Coote and
Alexander L. Kaufman

First published 2019

by Routledge

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Coote, Lesley A. (Lesley Ann), 1954 editor. | Kaufman, Alexander L., editor.

Title: Robin Hood and the outlaw/ed literary canon / edited by Lesley Coote and Alexander L. Kaufman.

Description: New York ; London : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Outlaws in literature, history, and culture ; 6 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018021451 (print) | LCCN 2018024510 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429442766 () | ISBN 9781138336919 | ISBN 9780429442766 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Robin Hood (Legendary character) | Robin Hood (Legendary character)In literature. | English literatureHistory and criticism. | Outlaws in literature. | Canon (Literature)

Classification: LCC PR2129 (ebook) | LCC PR2129 .R635 2019 (print) | DDC 820.9/351dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021451

ISBN: 978-1-138-33691-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-44276-6 (ebk)

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Any collection of scholarly essays is a work of collaboration, and this volume is no exception. The editors would like to thank in particular the generosity of the contributors for their erudite work, and for their patience during the editorial stages. At Routledge, we would especially like to thank Max Novick for his guidance throughout the review and publication process, and also Jennifer Morrow and Autumn Spalding for their assistance with the manuscript. The anonymous external readers provided a number of learned suggestions that helped to enhance the focus of the essays and the volume itself. The editors would like to thank John Emert, Dean of the Honors College at Ball State University, for his support of the volume and for arranging to have Shaina Partlow work on the page proofs; Shainas work was indispensable. Lastly, we would like to thank the many scholars of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies who provided feedback to the editors and contributorsat conferences, over emailon the scope of the volume and the aim of its essays, especially Thomas Hahn, Dean A. Hoffman, Stephen Knight, Thomas H. Ohlgren, and Lorraine Kochanske Stock.

Lesley Coote and Alexander L. Kaufman

In 1993 something quite astounding occurred. The Sixth Edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literaturethat paragon of English literature that was (and in many ways remains) the barometer by which those in the field of English literary studies determine which texts are canonicalincluded two new poems in the section Popular Ballads in the textbooks first volume. These two new texts were the only ones in this section of popular ballads to originate in the Middle Ages: the first was the poem Judas, from the thirteenth-century Trinity College Cambridge MS B 14, 39, and the other was a brief excerpt from A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode