This module will trace the origins, development and persistence of the myth of Robin Hood in written, film and visual form.  Students will be required to read literary texts from the fifteenth to the twenty-first centuries, and encouraged to study a range of film and television versions. The module will analyse not only individual manifestations of the legend, but also the development of that tradition across time, genre and form, in both national and international contexts.

On completion of the module a student will be expected to be able to be aware of the methodologies of historical cultural studies, to comprehend and explain how a complex cultural myth changes over time and in many contexts. Students  will also be able to interpret and analyse comparatively specific examples of the tradition in terms of their generic and social significance.

There will be 1 lecture a week, 1 student-led seminar a week, and 5 2-hour film showings taking place in the second half of the course.

Students will acquire a range of reading practices and methodologies while studying this course. They will improve their scholarly and critical skills, engage in contemporary academic debates and will continue to learn how to produce critical arguments. Employability skills include the ability to synthesise information, operating in group-based discussion involving negotiating ideas and producing clear, informed arguments in a professional manner.

The module is assessed via 2 essays: a 1200-word essays (worth 30%) to be handed in halfway through the course, which will require students to engage with fifteenth- and/or sixteenth-century manifestations of the Robin Hood tradition; a 2000-word essay to be submitted at the end of the course, for which students may address any area of the Robin Hood tradition, from c.1400 to 2018.

Students will also be invited to complete shorter formative writing tasks during the course and will be asked to contribute to seminars, though participation is not assessed.

The module is assessed according to the Marking Criteria set out in the English Literature Student Handbook. There are otherwise no academic or competence standards which limit the availability of adjustments or alternative assessments for students with disabilities.

Week 1: Introduction : Texts, Methods, Historicity

Week 2. Early Ballads 1: Robin Hood and the Monk and Robin Hood and the Potter

Week 3. Early Ballads 2: Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne and Playgames

Week 4. The Gest of Robin Hood

Week 5: Renaissance Robin Hood: Anthony Munday’s The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon

Week 6: Later Ballads from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Week 7: Romantic Robin: Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, a Romance

Week 8: Lord Robin in the Nineteenth Century: Thomas Love Peacock’s Maid Marian; Alfred Tennyson’s The Foresters

Week 9: Marian Emerges in the Twentieth Century: Film, Novel and Muppets

Week 10: Television and Film

INDICATIVE READING AND RESOURCE LIST:

Syllabus Content

Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren (available online and via Learning Central)

Poetry by Keats, Reynolds and Hunt *

Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

Thomas Love Peacock, Maid Marian *

Alfred Tennyson, The Foresters *

Jennifer Roberson, The Lady of the Forest

Theresa Tomlinson, The Forestwife

* - will be made available in booklet form.

FILMS – to include, among others:

Robin Hood, dir. A. Dwan, (Douglas Fairbanks Pictures, 1922)

The Adventures of Robin Hood, dir. W. Keighley and M. Curtiz, 1938

Robin Hood, dir. W. Reitherman, (Disney, 1973)

Robin and Marion, dir. R. Lester, 1976

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, dir. K. Reynolds, 1991

Robin Hood: Men in Tights, dir. M. Brooks, 1993

TELEVISION – to include, among others:

The Adventures of Robin Hood, ATV (1955-1960)

Robin of Sherwood, Harlech/Goldcrest (1984-1986)

The Muppets Show, episode 323, ATV (1979)

Robin Hood, BBC (2006-2009)

Secondary Reading

T. Hahn, ed., Robin Hood in Popular Culture (Brewer)