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Thesis
MISSING THE TREES FOR THE FOREST
University of West Florida
Master of Arts (MA), University of West Florida
2012
Abstract
In the outlaw ballad tradition as well as in tales of chivalric romance, the greenwood often plays a crucial part and is integral to the Robin Hood legend. This thesis explores the narrative reverence of and meditation on the greenwood of early Robin Hood ballads, a reverence that hearkens back to ancient pagan tree worship. In spite of the Christian influence of the early Robin Hood poets, the very setting of the greenwood in the ballads preserves an eradicable trace of the legend's pagan roots. The outlaws are enmeshed within a framework that medieval and early Modern subjects would have identified with superstition, mysticism, and the spirit(s) of the wood, and thus, Robin Hood's literary incarnation in early ballads casts him as a representative of repressed paganism, through his proximity to and relationship with the greenwood.
Details
- Title
- MISSING THE TREES FOR THE FOREST
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Publisher
- University of West Florida
- Format
- text
- Identifiers
- 99380090851406600
- Academic Unit
- English
- Language
- English
- Awarding Institution
- University of West Florida; Master of Arts (MA)
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), University of West Florida