Junior 2nd.

Literature

An introduction to Robin Hood

The legend and Pyle’s edition

The legend of the thirteenth century English outlaw Robin Hood

developed during the fourteenth century in England. Scholars
disagree on whether such a person actually existed, but various
versions of the legend have long appealed to young people with their
exciting tales of a populist outlaw band that struggled against
repressive authority in the persons of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Sir Guy
of Gisbourne, King John, and King Edward II.

In the nineteenth century, the Robin Hood legend received perhaps

its definitive schoolyard edition in Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures
of Robin Hood (1883), which retold twenty tales and included wood-cut
illustrations. Pyle’s text stayed in print throughout the twentieth
century.

Romanticism (1770-1850)

At the end of the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth,
Romanticism quickly spread throughout Europe to challenge the rational
ideal held so tightly during the Enlightenment. The artists emphasized
that sense and emotions –not simply reason and order– were equally
important means of understanding and experiencing the world.
Romanticism celebrated the individual imagination and intuition in the
long search for individual rights and liberty.

Romanticist practitioners valued originality, inspiration, and

imagination. Additionally, they oppose increasing industrialization, by
emphasizing the individual's connection to nature and an idealized past.

Key Ideas of the Romantic Movement

 Romanticism embraced the struggles for freedom and equality

and the promotion of justice.

 Romanticism embraced individuality and subjectivity to oppose

the excessive insistence on logical thought.

 Romanticism was closely connected with the emergence of newly

found nationalism that spread after the American Revolution.
Emphasizing local folklore, traditions, and landscapes,
Romanticists provided the visual imagery that encouraged
national identity and pride.
Junior 2nd. Literature

What was happening when Romanticism flourished?

o Nation-states were rising.

o People were moving to cities, where a literate middle class was

growing.

o New technologies dependent on power from fossil fuels (trains,

steamships, industrial printing) were being developed.

o People lived longer and better: that enabled ideas or values

including individualism, imagination, idealization of childhood,
families, love, nature, and the past.

Sources:
http://www.theartstory.org
https://www.enotes.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Determine whether these statements are true or false. Support

your answers with evidence from the previous text.

1. Howard Pyle invented The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood in

1883.

2. Robin Hood is a medieval legend.

3. People in the nineteenth century were interested in freedom,

equality and the promotion of justice, and those are major
themes of the legend of Robin Hood.