“If Rome be earthly, why should any knee with bending adoration worship her? She’s vicious … Therefore ‘tis fitter I should reverence the thatched houses where the Britons dwell.”
John Fletcher’s “Tragedy of Bonduca” (c.1609) | Stephen Basdeo
The Catacombs of Paris (1840) | George W. M. Reynolds
“Vengeance! Vengeance! I will yet be avenged! In the meantime, let me seek an hour’s repose!”
The Bottle Imp (1828) by Richard Brinsley Peake | Stephen Basdeo
“Thou mayest be the envy of the world during the day, but night must come, and at night thou must always expect my cheering presence!”
Victor Hugo’s Early Modern Outlaw Play: “Hernani” (1830)
Fans of outlaw stories, if they were ever able to time travel, might travel back to the 1820s and 1830s when Victor Hugo’s outlaw drama premiered.
Out of the Darkness: “The Catacombs of Paris” (1840) by George W.M.Reynolds | Louis James
Distinguished G W M Reynolds specialist, Prof. Louis James, talks about Reynolds’s only known play.
Ben Jonson’s “The Sad Shepherd; or, a Tale of Robin Hood” (1641)
In 1637 Ben Jonson began work on a Robin Hood play, “The Sad Shepherd; or, a Tale of Robin Hood,” and presented an idealised, pastoral outlaw world.
The Downfall of Robert, Earle of Huntington (1598) & The Death of Robert, Earle of Huntingdon (1601) by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle.
Robin Hood first became an Earl in the 16th century; two relatively unknown plays had a dramatic effect upon later interpretations of the legend.
Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood
The folktale of “The Two Children in the Wood” has always been popular with audiences, in spite of its grim content, depicting as it does the death of two children. However, the legend became incorporated into the Robin Hood tradition in the nineteenth century, This post discusses why two very different legends came to be associated.