“Robin Hood and the Canon”

MLA Boston, January 3-6, 2013

“Robin Hood and the Canon,” MLA Boston, January 3-6, 2013

What is the place and status of the Robin Hood texts and tradition in the canon? The Robin Hood literary texts are decidedly varied in terms of genre and form (historical writings, ballads, broadsides, dramas, novellas, and novels, for example), and the tradition stretches from the medieval period to the present. While such canonical writers as William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Keats, and Sir Walter Scott, among others, have written about the outlaw, Robin Hood’s presence within the canon is, for many, questionable. While Arthur and the Matter of Britain are fixtures within the canon (and like Robin Hood associated with aspects of popular culture), Robin Hood and the Matter of the Greenwood are in many ways still outside of literary and cultural officialdom – why?

This panel seeks papers that examine the reasons behind the status of the Robin Hood tradition in the canon. Papers that address the interdisciplinary nature of the tradition as it relates to canonicity are encouraged.

Please send 300-word abstracts to Alexander L. Kaufman (akaufman@aum.edu) by March 15, 2012.

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