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by Stephen Knight (Editor), Thomas Ohlgren (Editor)
Although nearly everyone has heard the name of Robin Hood, few have actually read any medieval tales about the legendary outlaw. Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren set out to correct this discrepancy in their comprehensive collection of all pre-seventeenth-century Robin Hood tales. The editors include such other "outlaw" figures as Hereward the Wake, Eustache the Monk, and Fouke le Fitz Waryn to further contextualize the tradition of English outlaw tales. In this text the figure of Robin Hood can be viewed in historical perspective, from the early accounts in the chronicles through the ballads, plays, and romances that grew around his fame and impressed him on our fictional and historical imaginations. This edition is particularly useful for classrooms, with its extensive introductions, notes, and glosses, enabling students of any level to approach the texts in their original Middle English.
Author Biography
Stephen Thomas Knight was until September 2011 Distinguished Research Professor at Cardiff University in the School of English, Communications and Philosophy; and is currently a Vice-Chancellor's Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Honorary Research. Thomas H. Ohlgren is Emeritus Professor of English and Medieval Studies at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he has taught since 1969 when he received his Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan. His scholarship focuses on the earliest surviving written accounts of Robin Hood, ranging from the chronicles of Andrew of Wynton (c. 1420), John Bower (c. 1440), John Major (1521) and Richard Grafton (1569), to the early ballads and plays, which include Robin Hood and the Monk, Robin Hood and the Potter, the Gest of Robyn Hode as well as several short plays. Ohlgren is less interested in finding the original, historical figure, which he believes does not exist, than in tracing the evolution of the medieval outlaw tale, such as Hereward the Wake, Eustace the Monk, and Fulk fitz Warin, which contain characters, plot elements, and themes too close to be accounted for by coincidence.
