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The Outlaw Legend: A Cultural Tradition in Britain, America and Australia
Highwaymen, badmen and bushrangers, both mythical and historical, have been part of folklore for centuries. Remembered and recreated through song, stories and film, this cultural tradition has been remarkably resilient across time and place. Graham Seal shows that these famous "social bandits" share many characteristics, particularly as anti-authority figures, and are best understood within class, ethnic and national struggles. From Robin Hood to outlaws in cyberspace, this book is an important study for folklorists.
- GenresHistory
268 pages, Paperback
First published July 13, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 18, 2014
I am giving this book a 5-star ("amazing") rating because I used the author's thesis as the basis for a talk on 19th century Arizona outlaw Curly Bill Brocius. The author explains why a few outlaws rise above their generally thuggish reputations to become legendary figures viewed with favor by a significant share of the public, both at the time and over time.
Very few outlaws in history rise to the status of hero or legend. The most famous, of course, is the mythological Robin Hood. The outlaw of Sherwood sits unchallenged at the top of the outlaw pyramid. In the United States, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde all passed beyond murder and robbery to celebrity status during their historical lives and folklorish afterlives.
Hood’s most defining quality is that he robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. The trait is ascribed to virtually every celebrated outlaw since English highwayman Dick Turpin whether or not they ever did any such thing. But there are actually a number of defining qualities that outlaws need to exhibit or be said to exhibit in order to rise above ordinary bad man to the level of cultural hero. Graham Seal, an authority on Outlaw heroes across the globe, has identified ten interacting narrative qualities that define this rare breed: friend of the poor, oppressed, forced into outlawry, brave, generous, courteous, does not indulge in unjustified violence, trickster, betrayed, and lives on after death.
According to Seal, not all ten elements are present in every outlaw hero. Enough will be there to indicate that certain values and attitudes are being invoked. The attributes not only reinforce expectations by the social groups that support and/or sympathize with particular outlaw heroes, they also motivate the outlaw hero to conform, or at least occasionally appear to conform, to the expectations.
Curly Bill possessed or exhibited some of the Seal's ten traits. However, he came up short in others, most notably his penchant for engaging in unjustified violence.
Very few outlaws in history rise to the status of hero or legend. The most famous, of course, is the mythological Robin Hood. The outlaw of Sherwood sits unchallenged at the top of the outlaw pyramid. In the United States, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde all passed beyond murder and robbery to celebrity status during their historical lives and folklorish afterlives.
Hood’s most defining quality is that he robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. The trait is ascribed to virtually every celebrated outlaw since English highwayman Dick Turpin whether or not they ever did any such thing. But there are actually a number of defining qualities that outlaws need to exhibit or be said to exhibit in order to rise above ordinary bad man to the level of cultural hero. Graham Seal, an authority on Outlaw heroes across the globe, has identified ten interacting narrative qualities that define this rare breed: friend of the poor, oppressed, forced into outlawry, brave, generous, courteous, does not indulge in unjustified violence, trickster, betrayed, and lives on after death.
According to Seal, not all ten elements are present in every outlaw hero. Enough will be there to indicate that certain values and attitudes are being invoked. The attributes not only reinforce expectations by the social groups that support and/or sympathize with particular outlaw heroes, they also motivate the outlaw hero to conform, or at least occasionally appear to conform, to the expectations.
Curly Bill possessed or exhibited some of the Seal's ten traits. However, he came up short in others, most notably his penchant for engaging in unjustified violence.
October 22, 2008
Great stuff. Critical for me is the way that the generic novel evolved hand in hand with the outlaw myth, beginning with Jack Crawford in Georgian London through Tom Jones to Wyatt Earp, etc., in the American West. In part, this was an articulation of primitive rebellion on the part of a largely passive population that could do little to change their lot but I think that something else is at work here - artistically. Villains play a special role in English and English language literature since Shakespeare drew on the medieval miracle play to give us Iago as the Devil (and self reflectibe protagonist) in Othello. It's why the bad guy always gets the best lines in movies from Harry Lime to Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight. I could write an academic paper on it. Come to think about it, I did.
April 14, 2007
My senior research project for school is to look at the historical role of the outlaw hero as a symbol of hope for the oppressed. With that in mind, I would have to say that Seal does a very good job laying out the framework for what is the archetypal outlaw hero and chooses some very good examples from the three countries that he studies. I found the book interesting and engaging as well as being written in a fairly straightforward and easy to read manner, something that doesn't happen usually in academic books. Any scholar of history, literature, folklore, and possibly even politics should pick this book up.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews