Description | The medieval period has always occupied a paradoxical position in our cultural memory. An age of fantasy unimaginably distant from historical reality, it is also an era onto which writers and artists—and now moviemakers and gamers—have long projected their fears and desires. Why do cultures remake certain figures from the past—but not others--in their own image?
Join Professor Emerita of History Robin Stacey for this five-lecture series where she looks at the present’s relationship with the past through the lens of the making and remaking of important historical figures—some real, some fictional, and some the creatures of myth.
Lecture Three: Tales of the Greenwood Hard as it is to imagine today, Robin Hood was but one of many fictional and historical outlaws making the rounds in medieval and early modern England. He has been interpreted in almost every way one can imagine, from nature god to miffed aristocrat to defender of the common folk. What makes his legend so enduring? And why do we seem to make so much more of Maid Marian than previous generations did? |
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