ABSTRACT
In 1822, an intellectual crime occurred. The perpetrators were a conniving and crafty collection of well-read editors, antiquarians, folklorists, booklovers, and book collectors; they had friends in high places and were themselves well-connected with the literary elite of nineteenth-century Great Britain. The victims were themselves of the bookish variety, and although no physical harm was committed to their bodies, the emotional, psychological, and egoistical assault that was levied against their beings caused a signicant amount of shame and embarrassment. There were those who were more aware of their literary surroundings and saw the assault coming; they had enough skill (or perhaps luck or intuition) that something sinister was afoot and that they should ready themselves. The focus of this essay is the literary document that lies at the heart of this incident: Two Ancient Ballads: “Robin Hood’s Courtship with Jack Cade’s Daughter”; and “The Freiris Tragedie.”2 Of the two texts included in this chapbook, the former is of more signi- cance for the purposes of this discussion. Robin Hood’s Courtship with Jack Cade’s Daughter is a 123-line Romantic composition in twenty-ve stanzas and, as the title states, it involves the courtship between Robin Hood and Joan Cade, the daughter of the fteenth-century rebel Jack Cade. In this essay, I will rst examine the historical context that brought this chapbook into existence, and what follows will be a discussion of the reception of the document in various literary and antiquarian circles. Finally, I would like to talk about the literary merits of the document, particularly the text of Robin Hood’s Courtship with Jack Cade’s Daughter, and its place within the Robin Hood tradition.
