11th Century… The Legend of Robin Hood 4 May 20164 May 2016 A Forthcoming Public Talk to be delivered at Pontefract Castle, Sunday 8 May 2016 Introduction The Renaissance poet Michael Drayton authored a monumental work entitled Poly-Olbion which was published in…
17th century… “The Noble Birth of Robin Hood” (1662) 4 Jan 2016 Introduction In the sixteenth century a peculiar genre of romance emerged known as picaresque fiction. It originated in Spain and portrayed the lives of rogues and criminals. The first such…
17th century… John Dryden’s “A Ballad of Bold Robin Hood, Shewing his Birth, Breeding, and Valour” 20 Dec 2015 But see where artful Dryden next appears, Grown old in rhyme, but charming ev’n in years, Great Dryden next, whose tuneful muse affords The sweetest numbers, and the fittest words.…
17th century… Captain James Hind (1616-1652): The Royalist Highwayman 15 Dec 2015 William Harrison Ainsworth’s novel Rookwood (1834) is the work which, along with Edward Bulwer Lytton’s lesser novel Paul Clifford (1830) imbued eighteenth-century highwaymen to legendary status. Ainsworth wanted to write…
18th century… The Birth of Robin Hood 29 Oct 201529 Oct 2015 The ballad The Birth of Robin Hood is of uncertain date, and never appeared in Joseph Ritson’s influential Robin Hood: A Collection of all the Ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads…
16th Century… Female Highwaymen 18 Oct 201518 Oct 2015 Highway robbery is predominantly thought of as a male-gendered crime, and it is true that the vast majority of those found in the dock at the Old Bailey in eighteenth-century…
