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Robin Hood's Guyde to Being the Merriest Of ROBIN HOOD’S GUYDE TO BEING THE MERRIEST OF MEN Stephanie Cohen Honors Thesis Spring 2013 Dr. John Cech, Dr. R. Allen Shoaf CONTENTS Introduction 2 Chapter 1 In All Kinds of Weather, Merry Men Band Together 11 Chapter 2 On Pride and Humility 15 Chapter 3 Testosterone in Tights 17 Chapter 4 Robbin’ the Rich: The Gift of Generosity 23 Chapter 5 Beware of Damsels in Distress! 24 Chapter 6 A Fair Fight 27 Chapter 7 On Outlaws 29 Chapter 8 Loyalty to the Lion-Hearted 34 Chapter 9 Disguises and Deceit: Trickster Robin 36 Chapter 10 Leave A Legacy: Death and Remembrance 44 Chapter 11 Robin the Role Model 51 Walt Disney’s Robin Hood 53 Robin Hood and The Hunger Games 59 Conclusion 68 Works Cited 71 1 Introduction For this Honors Thesis project, I would like to analyze the depictions of the Robin Hood archetype over several texts, as the character has been transformed by time and various cultures. We know him as the iconic archer clad in green from head to toe and, in medieval ballads and legends from as early as the 13th century to as recently as the past few years, the Robin Hood figure has been a prominent persona in literature. Even in medieval texts, Robin Hood morphed from a “highwayman”-like figure whose sole motivation was selfishness to a lovable outcast who steals from the wealthy and, in an act of self-sacrifice, gives the plunder to the poor. In more modern texts, most specifically Children’s Literature (i.e., Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood), Robin Hood is a romanticized figure, a bold archer whose tale delights both young and old alike. The archetypes of Robin Hood, the trickster and the adventurous archer, can also be observed in various contemporary texts, ranging from Mark Twain’s beloved characters of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer to the spunky Katniss Everdeen of Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games trilogy of recent vintage. I have set out to explore readers’ long-lasting love of the outlaw hero, this popular persona who defies the letter of the law and accepted conventions, yet who still manages to steal mainly our hearts. I also plan to study the evolution of the Robin Hood figure throughout literature, a mysterious being who first appeared in Scottish and English tales many centuries ago, whose adventures, conquests, and exploits continue to entertain and thrill readers to this very day. As the beloved character of Robin Hood addresses his audience in Howard Pyle’s renowned The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, 2 “One man calleth me kind, another calleth me cruel; this one calleth me good, honest fellow, and that one vile thief. Truly, the world hath as many eyes to look upon a man withal as there are spots on a toad; so, with what pair of eyes thou regardest me lieth entirely with thine own self. My name is Robin Hood” (Pyle 160). Over the years and throughout the multiple incarnations of this beloved hero, the archetype of Robin Hood has altered genders, locations, ages, and even personalities, yet the core of the character and his merry adventures somehow have preserved their original vitality. Ironically, Pyle’s oeuvre – at least his initial work – was met with disapproving reviews; as an American writer who had never visited England, he was criticized for an inaccurate portrayal of the English hero and his adventures in Nottinghamshire. Although The Merry Adventures “was neither a stunning commercial nor popular success during the first years of its publication” (Cech 11), there have been countless tellings and retellings since then, a myriad of revisions and editions which, despite their nuances and subtleties, all depict Robin as a legendary hero in Lincoln green. While newer productions of Robin Hood and his tales have appeared even into contemporary times, Pyle’s fears of losing the legends that were perpetuated solely by oral tradition, which originally drove him to write the book, unfortunately resurface as contemporary children’s interest in reading “old-fashioned” classics dwindles. Even though the name and reputation of Robin Hood and his Merry Men are known far and wide, “Part of Pyle’s purpose in doing The Merry Adventures had been to bring the traditional stories to children who ‘are very apt to know of Robin Hood without any very clear ideas upon his particular adventures’” (Cech 11). 3 English children’s literature, an invention of the 1740’s, has been defined by writer Bennett Brockman as “imaginative literature marketed to children and designed for their amusement as well as their edification” (Brockman 1); although the escapades of Robin Hood adhere to this definition, modern readers cannot help but feel that these tales are not as popular as they once were. The popular misconception of children’s literature as second or third-class literature has decreased the ostensible importance of keeping such legends strong, healthy, and alive: “[a]s Bennett Brockman has pointed out, the Robin Hood stories, along with many other medieval romances and fictions, were roundly denounced and dismissed by scholars, clergy, and educators from the Renaissance until well into the 18th century” (Cech 13). However, albeit Robin Hood tales may be denounced as archaic or overdone, in the wake of five centuries of beloved readers, they continue to survive and be referenced in modern literature, so that future generations may still revel in the tales of the Merry Men. When we think of frolicking fellows in the forest, Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and his partner-in-crime, Huckleberry Finn, also come to mind; when archery crosses our thoughts, we are reminded of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy, and that series’ protagonist, Katniss Everdeen. It is by and through such modern renditions that Robin Hood lives on in the minds and hearts of the literate. The Four Archetypal Robin Hoods We relish in the adventures of Robin Hood and his merry band of outlaws because, despite his rejection of conventional law, he always somehow effects a dashing escape, giving us a glimpse into what he stands for, namely, a system of social order and personal ethics superior to the current one that is in force. Although he is a mortal man, lacking any sort of superhuman powers – in fact, Robin of the Sherwood Forest always is represented as such an earthly and 4 human character – he is a protagonist of epic proportion, as identified by Stephen Knight in his Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography (2003) (Knight xiv). As evidenced in the Rymes of Robin Hood, there is Bold (Medieval) Robin, the Earl of Huntingdon, Robin Hood, Esquire, and the Robin Hood of Hollywood. While each of these personas differs slightly from the other, all have been illustrated in the many renderings of Robin Hood that have been compiled over the years through literature, film, and the mass conceptions of the general public audience. The first identity, Bold Robin Hood, is omnipresent in some form in the many different roles that the hero plays. Bold Robin Hood displays the utmost physical prowess and ethical courage, and is unfailingly successful in his brawls with strong, oppressive enemies. This medieval “yeoman,” reminiscent of Geoffrey Chaucer’s character from the “Knight’s Yeoman’s Tale,” possesses no royal or formal title, but rather is a man who protects those close to him. Although he only commands a band containing three or four outlaws (more realistic than the depictions of hundreds of Merry Men that surface in later renditions), he remains steadfastly faithful to the King, and also is a master archer. But this Robin, hailing from some ambiguous part of England, or even Scotland, only robs the rich for his own ends; he has not evolved into the full-fledged “man of the people” that he is considered in later versions. He is the rugged, drawn to nature, “famous cutthroat” (Knight 5) of the Gest of Robin Hood (1510), hardly the gregarious and selfless Robin Hood that his name calls to mind in the present day. At the roots of the Robin Hood tradition, there is no explanation for the Merry Men’s appearance in Sherwood Forest; it is seemingly very natural that Robin and his band exist in the forest, cohabitating with the King’s flora, fauna, and ferae naturae (wildlife), perpetuating the archetypal image of “Robin Hood in greenwood stood” (Knight 13). Harmony between the outlaw and the natural refuge to which he has fled has existed always, whereas there remains a 5 disconnect between the outlaw and the corrupt, immoral, and unethical authority figures that reign outside of the forest. In these “garlands,” collections of a dozen or so ballads bound together into small books, Little John, interestingly, is the trickster character; while Robin approves of his friend’s mischievous antics, he does not follow in his footsteps or initiate the playfulness, as he does in later retellings. Furthermore, there is no romantic subplot; Robin lacks any noble status and is unconcerned with any lady. The second archetype, or the gentrified Robert, Earl of Huntingdon/Huntington, provides our hero with a backstory to his antiauthoritarian roots; Robin is an aristocrat in distress, often referred to as Sir Robert of Loxley. While we are not certain if his nobility has been gained through birth or through his achievements, this Robin’s abhorrence of all evil is personal, rather than political. This Robin, then, is more akin to the patriotic figure of Scottish rebel leader William Wallace, condoning redistributive robbery, and supporting the illusion that the “pastoral is just a visit, forest provides just a charming reflex of the cultural realities of the court” (Knight 57).
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