Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw

by R.B. Dobson and John Taylor

Book Overview

Robin Hood, the medieval outlaw who has been represented as both common criminal and rustic hero, continues to fascinate and beguile the modern mind. In recent years historians and literary critics... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0862996104
• ISBN13: 9780862996109
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Sutton Publishing
• Length: 342 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Robin Hood Through the Ages

This book offers a compilation of historical Robin Hood retellings, but also a comprehensive history of the Robin Hood legend. The introduction provides a thorough description and analysis of the genesis of the Robin Hood mystique, and then in the second and third part of the book each version is individually criticized. Rhymes, songs, prose, and theatrical versions all appear. In the last section, the authors provide a sample of other outlaw poetry, which can be compared to the Robin Hood legends. The authors have also compiles a comprehensive companion to any version of the legend, with maps of places, lists of names, and theories as to the origin of the legend. This is an interesting and readable book. It strikes a remarkable balance between anthology and read-straight-through history book. It could certainly be read straight through, or in pieces. Even if you're not interested in wading through some of the middle English words, the analysis and introduction is indispensable to anyone interested in the Robin Hood legend, in outlaw mythology, British history, or even the history of the English language.

A classic study of Robin Hood.

Here is a book that's been considered a classic in Robin Hood scholarship for over 30 years -- and deservedly so! It collects several important ballads, plays and poems. And it has a long well-written and very accessible introduction about the legend as a whole. Also, the new preface fills people in on the exciting Robin Hood scholarship of the 1980s and 1990s. Prepare to fall in love with Robin Hood all over again.

Wonderful Historical Overview of the Legend's Development

This new paperback edition of the 1976 work has twenty-eight new pages of preface and forward which detail and discuss much of the more recent Robin Hood scholarship by Stephen Knight and others. About two dozen Robin Hood ballads, plays, and poems are viewed from the perspective of two noted English historians. They do an excellent job of bringing a nice group of the early Robin Hood ballad sources to light. In addition, several later poems, a number of plays, and a few other outlaw poems find their way into the book and the discussion. The authors round out their study with four appendices, a bibliography (from 1976), an updated additional bibliography (since 1976), and an index. Overall this a very good place to start researching this celebrated English outlaw. If you get hooked, as I have, there is more than enough information contained here to lead you on as merry a chase of the elusive outlaw as you chose to take.