The Bad Boy of Sherwood Forest

From the May 21 New York Times, a consideration of the image of Robin Hood in the movies via newly released DVDs. Dave Kehr writes about prior Robin Hoods as Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett reimagine the olde, olde story.

The website Shadows of Sherwood has links to Robin Hood in Literature. Here is information about the real and mythic Robin, from about.com and more material about the Robin Hood legend, including links to texts, from the Robin Hood Pages.

Robin Hood-Itry

Nicholas Adam Curott and Alexander Fink, George Mason University, have published Bandit Heroes: Social, Mythical or Rational?. Here is the abstract.

Bandits steal from their fellow men. Yet they are regularly subjects of folksongs, novels and movies. In these outlets they are presented as folk heroes despite their crimes. Sociological explanations for this phenomenon based upon the concept of the ‘social bandit’ and psychological explanations based upon myth building, have been brought forth to explain the seeming contradiction. We argue that the available approaches are misled or incomplete. We propose an alternative explanation for the bandit hero phenomenon and maintain that by acting in their self-interest bandits provide valuable services to society. The benefits that bandits generate form the foundation for their positive reception.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.