V5 Literature - Robin Hood

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Assignment

Read pages 40+41 and answer the questions on page 41 on here. 

Extra question for the people who'd like to learn more. 

What is striking about these stories is that they reveal that, in an age when the Rule of Law was respected as the foundation of good government, those who put themselves outside the law had become popular heroes. This is in complete contrast to public perceptions of the outlaw at the beginning of King Henry II's reign, and shows that the existing order had come to be regarded as tyrannical. Tyranny was the abuse of law.

If the existing order was founded on the arbitrary will of evil men who could twist the law to their own ends, then it was the role of the outlaw to seek redress and justice by other means. In a violent age, these means were invariably violent. Robin Hood and his contemporaries were cunning, merciless and often brutal (in one instance Much the Miller's Son murders a monk's page to prevent him giving them away); but by the codes of their time, they were also honourable.

1. What does the sheriff mean by 'horn-beasts' in stanza 20?

2. What does Robin Hood mean by the phrase? (See stanza 24?)

3. What is meant by 'good free land' in stanza 21?

4. In which stanza is it made clear that the sherrif doesn't realise whom he is dealing with?

5. Indicate the lines in which it is made clear that the sheriff feels cheated?

6. How does Robin Hood alert his companions to the fact that they should reveal themselves?

7. How does little John respond in the last two lines of stanza 28?

8. Which words in the final stanza make it clear that Robin Hood has the situation firmly under control?

9. Which of the following characteristics of a ballad are absent from this poem?

1. a simple storyline
2. an ABCB rhyme patern
3. superstition and supernatural elements
4. repetition / refran

10. What might the moral of this story be?