John Dryden (1631-1700) is a significant figure in the literary history of the 17th century. In the Sixth Part of his Miscellany Poems he included an old ballad of Robin Hood. This post seeks to explain why he did this.
or, The Life and Death of the Notorious High-Way-Man, Now Hanging in Chains at Hampstead, Delivered to a Friend a Little before Execution: Wherein is Truly Discovered the Whole Mystery of that Wicked and Fatal Profession of Padding on the Road (1674)
James Maclean (1724-1750) – the last ‘heroick’ highwayman.
Examining how Scott’s fictional interpretation of the Middle Ages, in particular the notion that Robin Hood was a Saxon yeoman, influenced historical scholarship in the early-to-mid nineteenth century.
I recently came across an obscure little book entitled The History and Real Adventures of Robin Hood and his Merry Companions. Written by Captain Charles Johnson. To Which are added, some of the most favourite ballads from an old book, entitled Robin Hood’s Garland (1800). The archival entry lists the author as Daniel Defoe (c.1660-1731),
Did people *need* the myth of a good outlaw?
Do we read ‘books,’ or do we read texts? What is a book?
This is a copy of the paper I gave at the British Association for Romantic Studies International Conference, 19 – 19 July 2015.
In Henry Fielding’s novel, there was no difference between the great men in high life and those in low life.
I feel bad writing about something like this, like I’m betraying my eighteenth-century roots.
Pierce Egan the Younger (1814-1880) was like the George R. R. Martin of his day. He loved the medieval period,
The 19th-century criminal was an altogether different species of villain compared to the romantic highwayman a century previously.
Exorbitancy and Necessity frequently compelled him to perpetrate Villainy; And no wonder, since he lived in the most infectious Air of the worst of most Licentious Times.
Eugene Sue’s “The Mysteries of Paris” marked the emergence of a new genre: the urban gothic.
The novel emerged as the dominant literary form in the 1700s, but one of its influences was the contemporary genre of criminal biography.
Prince John is now one of the stock villains of movie and television adaptations of the Robin Hood legend, but this wasn’t always the case…