Children’s Literature Canon, Robin Hood, Children’s Literature Criticism

Abstract

This essay presents an important contribution to the discussion of canonicity of Robin Hood texts. First, understanding historical materialism is important if we are to recognize some of the reasons why the myriad intersections between the legend of Robin Hood and children’s and young adult books raise important questions about definition as well as race and gender. Second, using the historical materialist tradition in general to read against the grain Robin Hood’s presence in canonical and popular children’s literature highlights the latter’s uneasy relationship with traditional Western literary canons. Even today, children’s books, including those that focus on Robin Hood, remain contested spaces. To illustrate these first two issues, this essay emphasizes seminal works of children’s fiction, such as Howard Pyle’s 1883 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Geoffrey Trease’s 1934 Bows Against the Barons, and Roger Lancelyn Green’s 1956 The Adventures of Robin Hood. Third, looking at the legend of Robin Hood and its centrality to the history of children’s and adolescent literature through the lens of historical materialism raises important questions about the role played by children’s literature criticism in the dissemination of children’s books and idealist and romantic constructions of the child throughout history.