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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Maid Marian," Thomas Love Peacock weaves a sophisticated narrative that blends elements of romance, adventure, and social commentary within a reimagined Robin Hood legend. Written in 1822, this novel draws upon the literary tradition of the Gothic and Romantic movements, showcasing Peacock's wit and his intricate prose style. The story presents Maid Marian as a complex and proactive heroine, challenging the prevailing perceptions of female characters in literature of the time. Peacock's philosophical underpinnings and playful satire provide astute reflections on love, virtue, and societal norms, all while offering a rich tapestry of characters and lush descriptions that transport readers to a vibrant medieval England. Thomas Love Peacock, an English novelist and philosopher, was deeply influenced by the turbulent political landscape of early 19th-century England and the burgeoning Romantic movement. Educated in the classics and a confidant of notable figures like Shelley and Byron, Peacock crafted this work as an exploration of the heroine's psyche, arguably contrasting it against the ideals of feminism emerging in his era. His own life experiences and friendships inform the depth and nuance of his writing, allowing him to challenge gender norms with finesse and satire. I highly recommend "Maid Marian" to readers seeking a multifaceted approach to traditional tales. Its intricate layering of narrative and character invites both reflection and enjoyment, making it an essential read for those interested in early Victorian literature, feminist themes, and the evolution of the English novel. Peacock's adept craftsmanship ensures that this work remains both entertaining and thought-provoking, a true gem within the literary canon. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Maid Marian
Table of Contents
Introduction
In Thomas Love Peacock’s Maid Marian, the joyous freedom of the greenwood tests the claims of law and authority. Peacock, an English satirist of the Romantic era, uses the familiar Robin Hood milieu to stage a lively contest between convivial fellowship and official power. Rather than treating the legend solemnly, he turns it into a playful, thinking person’s entertainment that invites readers to weigh merriment against martial rule. The result is a tale that balances romantic adventure with intellectual sparkle, using comedy not to trivialize the medieval setting but to illuminate it with wit, clarity, and humane skepticism.
Maid Marian is a comic historical romance set in medieval England, centered on Sherwood Forest and the outlaw community made famous by traditional ballads. First published in the early 1820s, it belongs to a moment when British readers were fascinated by the Middle Ages and responsive to experiments that blended chivalric color with modern irony. Peacock situates his narrative within that vogue while remaining unmistakably himself: urbane, concise, and fond of turning a genre’s conventions inside out. The book’s compact scale and sprightly pace make it approachable while its allusive playfulness rewards readers attentive to the textures of legend and satire.
The premise follows the celebrated outlaws—Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and their companions—as they thrive beyond the reach of sheriffs and courtiers, hosting feasts, matching wits with authority, and safeguarding the greenwood’s accustomed liberties. Without retelling every exploit, Peacock focuses on the spirit of outlawry: cheerful self-rule, open-handed hospitality, and a readiness to laugh at solemn pretensions. The narrative voice is bright and musical, enlivened by comic dialogue and interludes that lighten the historical frame. Readers can expect brisk movement from episode to episode, an emphasis on character types perfected by folklore, and a mood that prizes good humor over grim heroics.
At its core, the book explores the tension between justice and legality, asking what it means to live rightly when institutions fail to honor fairness and fellowship. Themes of camaraderie, generosity, and communal responsibility stand beside reflections on rank and merit, as the greenwood becomes a testing ground for values not measured by pedigree. Nature, too, is more than scenery: the forest shelters an ethic of shared abundance and prudent independence. Marian’s presence adds energy and poise, underscoring questions of agency, loyalty, and the uses of courage. Peacock’s satire never descends into cynicism; it keeps faith with pleasure, laughter, and humane limits on power.
Formally, Maid Marian is a pastiche that tweaks the rhetoric of medieval romance while relishing its pageantry. Peacock’s prose is lucid and nimble, shifting from buoyant banter to mock-heroic elevation without losing control of tone. Songs and festive set pieces punctuate the narrative, creating a theatrical rhythm that suits the outlaw camp’s communal life. The humor is pointed but light, allowing readers to enjoy the spectacle of duels, disguises, and feasts even as conventions are being gently deflated. This mingling of play and critique is characteristic of Peacock’s art, turning entertainment into an instrument of reflection.
Contemporary readers may find the book fresh in its insistence that joy can be a civic principle and that institutions serve best when they honor everyday decency. Its engagement with questions of authority, property, and common life resonates beyond the medieval frame, inviting comparisons to ongoing debates about law, custom, and the stewardship of shared resources. The greenwood fellowship offers a counter-image to isolated individualism, suggesting that liberty flourishes where wit, courage, and hospitality are held in common. At the same time, the novel’s brevity and levity make it accessible, presenting serious concerns through charm rather than heaviness.
Approached as both adventure and social comedy, Maid Marian offers a reading experience that is brisk, generous, and slyly intelligent. Those seeking relentless grimness will not find it here; Peacock prizes conviviality and flair, guiding readers through a world where archery contests and lively banquets coexist with quiet arguments about conscience. The style is polished but playful, the pacing quick without feeling rushed, and the atmosphere tinged with pastoral ease. For newcomers to Robin Hood lore, it provides a friendly doorway; for seasoned admirers, it refreshes familiar figures with a clear-eyed, humane light that still glows warmly today.
Synopsis
Maid Marian is a short satirical romance that retells the Robin Hood legend with special attention to Marian herself. Set during the reign of Richard the Lionheart, when the king is abroad and Prince John’s agents grow bold, the opening presents feasting, music, and argument at a baronial hall and in Sherwood’s glades. The tone is comic and buoyant, favoring songs and banter over grim combat, while sketching a social backdrop of forest law, greedy officials, and needy tenants. Out of this scene, the renowned archer and his companions take shape as leaders of a voluntary woodland commonwealth governed by hospitality and fair shares.
At Arlingford Castle, Baron Fitzwater’s daughter Matilda is shown as spirited, skilled in the chase, and resistant to narrow courtly expectations. Suitors gather, among them the Norman knight Sir Ralph Montfaucon, whose claims rest on rank and alliance. Fitzwater weighs political advantage under uncertain royal favor, but Matilda’s affection is already pledged to Robert Fitzooth, Earl of Huntingdon, known in the forest as Robin. Their understanding emerges in playful dialogue and shared sport. Pressure from church and crown threatens to separate them, as independent households outside direct supervision attract suspicion, and clerical guardianship or an arranged match are proposed as remedies.
Robin’s position worsens as disputes over game and frank speech bring him into collision with the Sheriff of Nottingham and monastic authorities. Rather than submit to arrest, he chooses the greenwood, where a disciplined company forms around him. Little John, Will Scarlet, Much the miller’s son, and Friar Tuck enter in lively vignettes, contributing strength, craft, and comic debate. The band’s compact includes equal divisions, courtesy to women, and assistance to the poor, with tolls levied on oppressive officers and wealthy passersby. Their merrily ordered camp stands as an alternative to official venality, and their reputation spreads through song and rumor.
When schemes intensify to confine Matilda in a convent or bind her to an unwelcome marriage, she asserts her choice and escapes supervision. Taking the name Maid Marian, she joins the forest household as a partner rather than a pageant figure. She rides and shoots with skill, learns woodcraft quickly, and steadies plans when impulse threatens to govern. Peacock sets banquets under the leaves, with toasts and ballads, and stages disputes about fasting and license between friars and foresters. Marian’s adoption of the green mantle consolidates the community, clarifies loyalties at Arlingford, and transforms private courtship into shared public purpose.
A sequence of encounters tests the band’s rules and exposes their enemies’ habits. A wealthy abbot’s train is courteously halted and assessed; a distressed knight receives timely aid on terms of honor and repayment. The Sheriff and his clerical allies attempt lures and ambuscades, from forged summonses to showy contests meant to reveal outlaw archers. Disguises, quick wits, and open matches thwart these designs, while Friar Tuck’s appetite and theology provide comic counterpoint to Doncaster’s pomp. Violence is rare and reversible; reversals, recognitions, and repartee predominate. Each adventure slightly raises the danger, expands sympathies, and knits the outlaw fellowship more tightly.
The larger political situation closes in. With Richard away, John’s partisans collect revenues and favors through sheriffs and abbeys, and barons calculate their positions. Fitzwater is obliged to balance fealty against conscience, while Montfaucon represents the polished claims of centralized power. Messages pass between castle and greenwood bearing news of foreign wars, domestic levies, and shifting patronage. The outlaws insist on loyalty to the absent king and define themselves as protectors rather than rebels, defending travelers and tenants from extortion. Pastoral ease blends with topical satire, as debates on taxation, scarcity, and law echo contemporary disputes in good-humored parody.
Conflicts crest at public gatherings and sudden arrests. A great entertainment draws barons, churchmen, officers, and incognito archers, where challenges are issued and identities masked until the last moment. When a companion falls into custody, a bold release deploys woodland shortcuts, monastic passages, and feigned penance. Marian’s initiative repeatedly alters designs, whether by forest signaling, timely counsel, or negotiation. Neutral neighbors must choose their side, and the sheriff’s cordons narrow. The tone remains buoyant, with music and feasting never far away, yet the decisions taken now will determine whether the company can remain at large or seek formal redress.
News from abroad and changes at court bring a decisive shift in fortunes. Royal authority reasserts itself, compelling local persecutors and woodland protectors alike to submit their claims to a higher judgment. Old offenses and services are weighed, tempers cool, and mediators carry proposals beneath Sherwood’s trees. Without dwelling on procedure, the narrative moves toward accommodation, allowing disguises to be set aside and standings declared openly. The contest between private rapacity and public right is resolved in a manner consistent with the tale’s festive spirit, and the principal figures are set on paths where loyalty, livelihood, and affection can coexist.
Across its compact course, the book presents a comic-heroic vision of fellowship, balancing chivalric romance with satirical observation. By placing Marian alongside Robin as co-protagonist, it emphasizes partnership, resourcefulness, and shared governance in the greenwood. The episodes showcase hospitality, quick wit, and archery as instruments of social critique, suggesting that generosity and good humor can check officious power. Songs, toasts, and debates punctuate the action, keeping the pace light while articulating a preference for liberty moderated by courtesy. The close affirms continuity and restored order without lingering on punishment, preserving the legend in a mood of cheerful reconciliation.
Historical Context
Thomas Love Peacock sets Maid Marian in late twelfth-century England, chiefly in the greenwood of Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, with excursions to nearby Barnsdale and the precincts of Nottingham Castle. The narrative coincides with the reign of King Richard I (1189–1199), when the king’s absence on the Third Crusade and captivity left local officers, especially sheriffs, with wide discretionary power. The forest itself is a legal as well as a physical space, governed by stringent forest laws that guarded royal game and trees. Within this landscape, Peacock stages feasting, hunting, ambushes, and May-time revels, evoking a world where feudal privileges collide with popular customs and communal rights to the woods.
Royal forest law, forged after 1066 and elaborated under the Norman and Angevin kings, is central background. Forests were not simply wooded tracts but jurisdictions where the Crown protected vert (vegetation) and venison (game) with severe penalties, enforced by verderers, foresters, and itinerant forest eyres. Poaching could mean mutilation or later heavy fines and imprisonment. These institutions culminated in a medieval backlash that produced the Charter of the Forest in 1217, restoring commoners’ rights of pasture, pannage, and estovers. Peacock’s scenes of outlaw banquets and illicit deer-taking dramatize this legal terrain, converting technical restrictions into lively conflict between the Sheriff of Nottingham’s authority and the greenwood’s customary liberties.
The Angevin polity in the 1190s supplies the book’s political weather. Richard I departed for the Third Crusade in 1190, was seized returning from the East in December 1192, and ransomed in 1194 for a colossal 150,000 marks to Emperor Henry VI. During his absence, Prince John and allies maneuvered for power, extracting revenues through scutage, amercements, and forest fines. In March 1194, Richard besieged and retook Nottingham Castle, holding a great council there to reassert royal control. Maid Marian reflects this unsettled interregnal moment: the Sheriff’s energetic exactions, the populace’s resort to the woods, and the prospect of royal return all frame Robin Hood’s band as an ad hoc check on local tyranny.
Baronial resistance to arbitrary governance culminated in Magna Carta (15 June 1215) under King John, brokered by Archbishop Stephen Langton and leaders such as Robert FitzWalter. Magna Carta curbed abuses in scutage, amercements, and due process, laying down that no free man be imprisoned except by lawful judgment. Its companion settlement, the Charter of the Forest (1217), limited forest jurisdiction and restored common rights. Peacock’s narrative, though set before 1215, repeatedly anticipates this constitutional language: his outlaws enforce equitable distribution, mock extortionate officials, and uphold fraternity across ranks. The greenwood becomes a provisional commonwealth whose ethos aligns with the later formal constraints imposed on royal and seigneurial power.
Maid Marian herself is rooted in early modern festive culture as much as medieval chronicle. English May Games of the sixteenth century regularly featured Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, and a May Queen called Maid Marian; printed references appear by the 1510s. Elizabethan dramatist Anthony Munday’s plays The Downfall and The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon (1598–1599) recast Marian as Matilda Fitzwater, a noblewoman who joins Robin in the forest. Peacock draws on this lineage, presenting Marian as Matilda, daughter of Fitzwater, to fuse chivalric nobility with popular festivity. The Sherwood pageantry—morris-like dances, Maying, and communal meals—thus mirrors documented English seasonal rites transposed into a twelfth-century frame.
The work’s most formative pressure comes from events around its composition and publication (1818–1822). Post-Napoleonic Britain, victorious in 1815, was racked by demobilization, a swollen national debt exceeding £800 million, high taxation, and trade dislocation. The Corn Law of 1815 (55 Geo. III c.26) barred cheap foreign grain until domestic prices reached a high threshold, sustaining landowners while keeping bread dear. Climatic shock from the 1815 Tambora eruption contributed to the “Year Without a Summer” (1816), crop failures, and riots. The government responded to unrest with repression: suspension of habeas corpus in 1817, spies and prosecutions against radicals, and severe policing of assembly. On 16 August 1819, a peaceful reform meeting at St Peter’s Field, Manchester—led by Henry Hunt—was charged by yeomanry; at least 15 were killed and hundreds injured in what contemporaries called the Peterloo Massacre. Parliament’s Six Acts (December 1819) then curtailed mass meetings, increased stamp duties on cheap newspapers, and stiffened penalties for seditious writing and training. Within this climate, disputes over the Game Laws took on a political edge: guarding elite hunting privileges looked to many like guarding class power. Peacock’s Sherwood becomes a coded answer to those controversies. His generous redistribution of venison, mock trials of corrupt officials, and celebratory common feasts reframe poaching and assembly as community self-help rather than crime or sedition. By projecting Regency grievances onto a medieval canvas, he turns outlaw merriment into a pointed rebuke of oligarchic legislation and crowd control in the 1815–1820 settlement.
Contemporary debate over the Game Laws and enclosure provides a precise social analogue to the book’s forest politics. The Black Act of 1723, still resonant in the early 1800s, made night poaching while armed and disguised a capital offense, feeding the “Bloody Code” that by the 1810s listed over 200 capital crimes. Enclosure, carried by hundreds of parliamentary acts across the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, extinguished many customary rights of pasture and wood-gathering, especially acute in the Midlands and southern counties. By exalting Sherwood’s open commons and punishing only cruelty or extortion, Peacock counters both the criminalization of subsistence and the privatization of shared resources that shaped rural conflict in his own day.
As social and political critique, Maid Marian exposes how legal regimes mask class interest. The medieval forest—ostensibly preserving the king’s deer—mirrors the Regency state’s protection of landed privilege through tariffs, game statutes, and coercive laws. Peacock satirizes petty officials, venal clergy, and rent-seeking nobles, while elevating conviviality, open-handed charity, and mutual obligation. His outlaws model a popular justice that checks fiscal predation and arbitrary arrest, anticipating constitutional restraints like Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest. In translating contested bread, land, and assembly rights into merriment, he indicts policies that criminalize need, defend monopoly, and fracture common life, urging a polity anchored in equitable access and civic fellowship.
