Robin who? Representations of an honourable outlaw in the twenty-first century

Robin Hood is a subject which has received plenty of attention in recent years. However, many of the studies conducted in the field focus on either establishing a historicist basis to the myth or comparing it to similar outlaw tales. There is also a lack of investigation into twenty-first-century Robin Hood texts. To this end, this thesis combats the necessity of a historicist approach to the novel by accepting it as a myth, whilst also examining Robin Hood stories published after the year two-thousand, leaving the study relevant and contemporary. This thesis uses one of the first Robin Hood stories as a control text to examine how much the myth has changed in the twenty-first century, but as well as this, the thesis offers pathways of how these changes came about. There are three themes examined which are gender, location and social class, and these demonstrate the depth of change to the character and the malleability of the myth as a promotion of the author’s ideals. Whilst the many authors of Robin Hood texts attempt to individualise their own interpretation of the character, without exception, they are unable to escape the truth of their lineage. Despite this, each new Robin Hood text adds new elements to the character, and this evolution is the reason that Robin Hood has remained in the public sphere for hundreds of years.