antihero = 'anti-establishment hero'

[victor steinbok]

Well, he IS supposed to be a rogue, so could it be interpreted that way? I
mean, is the description of the underlying character or of his anti-heroic
qualities? I suppose, depending on how you read it, Robin Hood could be both
a prototypical hero and a prototypical anti-hero. I thought the whole
dramatic point (if there is one) of Robin Hood is that we are supposed to
see through the anti-heroic facade and recognize a real hero--whatever that
may be. To reverse the metaphor, there is a bit of Dillinger in Robin Hood
rather than Robin Hood in Dillinger.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/outlaws/dillinger/1.html

I am not trying to be contrarian. I completely agree that the semantics of
"anti-hero" has drifted significantly over the past three decades--not the
least of it because film is a different medium from literature. Seven
Samurai, Yojimbo had the heavy-handed traditional distinction. Now we get
The Dark Knight--and a bucketful of Spaghetti Westerns in between. Perhaps
if Robin Hood The Movie came first, he would have been a more complex
character. But he's getting a bit long in the tooth and all the film
versions are rather trite. ;-)

Besides, if it's good enough for Don Quixote, it should be good enough for
Robin Hood.

2000
http://books.google.com/books?id=nL0EYMp4OfUC&pg=PA85

VS-)

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 9:02 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> ?2009
>
> http://science.jrank.org/pages/11602/War-Peace-in-Arts-Heroic-Soldier.html#=
> ixzz0iIT0REwd
> :
> The Robin Hood of legend was the classic antihero--an aristocrat who donned
> the garb of ordinary peasants and took up their cause of opposing taxation
> and other feudal obligations while an absentee king fought in foreign wars.
>
> JL
>

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