123042 PS Literary Studies / Proseminar Literature (2021W)

“Many men speak of Robin Hood, who never drew his bow.” There is hardly a proverb (qtd. in Knight 7) that describes the nature of the Robin Hood legend more accurately. Despite Robin Hood’s persistent popularity (a Google search yields 47,000.000 results (!)), familiarity with his medieval origins is basic at best.
‘Born’ more than six hundred years ago, Britain’s most famous outlaw continues to fascinate popular audiences and critics alike, as is testified by an increasing number of works of fiction, TV shows and film versions of the hero, as well as a growing corpus of Robin Hood scholarship.
While the popular notion of Robin Hood as the ‘noble outlaw’, resisting unjust authority and taking from the rich to give to the poor, has shaped the hero’s image, the earliest (con)texts paint a very different picture. Here, we are confronted with an elusive Robin, difficult to characterise, and often not at all the epitome of goodness that we have come to cherish.

In this pro-seminar, we will study the popular outlaw in his various manifestations. We will explore the rootedness of the legend in folkloric tradition – the medieval play games –, its relation to the outlaw myth and the tradition of the ‘social bandit’, the politics and ideological implications of the Robin Hood material, and the relevance of transgression. Together, we will analyse the structural and formal properties of the texts and familiarise ourselves with a number of critical and methodological approaches that can help us understand the historical, sociological, and cultural contexts of the Robin Hood material.
As part of this class, we will also briefly revise the basics of academic writing.

Disclaimer: Please note that a large part of this class will be dedicated to the late medieval and early modern Robin Hood legend, especially the early ballads, as well as excerpts from related tales and play texts. This is not a film class. While we will trace the trajectory of the outlaw throughout the ages and look at later versions of the Robin Hood myth, this will not be our main focus. You will hence be expected to read a large number of (annotated) texts from the medieval and early modern period as well as take over an expert session on one of these texts. Please be prepared to do so.

At the end of this seminar, you should be able to:
- read, summarise, and contextualise a number of late medieval, early modern, and modern texts featuring the/an outlaw
- identify the plots, characters, and major themes of the texts discussed in class and analyse their formal features
- describe continuities and differences between the texts, also with reference to their different cultural/temporal contexts
- read and give an account of relevant secondary texts, explain their main ideas, and identify the major theoretical concepts they introduce
- find and use secondary literature that can help you understand the artifacts discussed in class
- read a number of critical and methodological approaches, summarise their main points, contrast and relate them to each other, apply them to the primary texts
- plan and write an academic paper about one of the discussed texts (or a related topic)
- assess your colleagues’ performances and give peer-feedback

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Knight, Stephen. Robin Hood. A Mythic Biography. Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 2003.