Noble outlaw

Last updated February 17, 2024

The noble outlaw is a literary archetype found in cultures around the world. Other phrases denoting the same or a similar concept include "knight-errant",^[1] particular to European medieval chivalric romance literature, and Byronic hero, especially in European Romanticism.

Definition

Hubert Babinski, in a review of a study of the 18th-century Italian bandit-outlaw Angelo Duca defines it as follows: the noble outlaw is "a basically good person who had been wronged early in his life by some superior in the social hierarchy. On the basis of that experience the young man decides that such a wrong can only be redressed if the society changes, but such changes can not come from within the social system, only in defiance of it."^[2]

Peter L. Thorslev, Jr. (later Emeritus professor of English at UCLA), in his book on The Byronic Hero in the 1960s, described the noble outlaw as a development of a prior archetype, the gothic villain, that in its turn lead to the Byronic hero.^[3] Both noble outlaw and gothic villain are rebels, against society and even against God or gods, but the gothic villain is not a hero, whereas noble outlaws "are invariably solitaries, and are fundamentally and heroically rebellious" against injustices, be they divine or of their fellow humans.^[3] He related these developments to shifts in the values of Romantic authors and readers "from conformism in large social patterns of conduct or thought, to radical individualism; from humble right reason, common sense, and the proper study of mankind, to a thirst to know and experience all things, to encompass infinities; from acquiescence before God and the social order, to heroism and hubris".^[3] However, noble outlaws retained nostalgic vestiges of the past, as they rebelled in part against the rise of bureaucratic nation states and harked back to the more feudalistic times of "personal loyalties; personal justice; and personal heroism".^[4]^[5] He characterized the noble outlaw as "certainly the single most popular hero of the Romantic Movement".^[5]

Examples

In medieval European literature, a well-known example is Robin Hood.^[4]^[5] Others are found in the Decameron , Two Gentlemen of Verona , Don Quixote (Roque Guinart), and The Beggar's Opera .^[6] These are named in Paul Angiolillo's study of Angelo Duca; Babinski notes that Angiolillo's relies for his analysis on the work of Eric Hobsbawm.^[2] Examples from the Romantic period in Europe include Goethe's Götz,^[7] Friedrich Schiller's Karl Moor,^[7]^[5] and Walter Scott's Lord Marmion ^[7] and Byron's Conrad.^[8] A 20th-century American example is Arthur Miller's John Proctor.^[4]

The noble outlaw as highwayman was a widespread and popular character in the literature of the 18th century (colonial era) Southern United States and thenceforwards.^[9] Highwaymen were portrayed almost as social reformers, championing the people and avenging injustices done against them.^[5] Karl Moor, aforementioned, was emblematic of this, and The Robbers had lasting appeal in the South.^[5] Walter Scott himself was to describe his historical novels as full of "the dubious characters of Borderers, buccaneers, Highland robbers, and all others of a Robin Hood description".^[5]

In Chinese culture, the archetype is called hsia, or wuxia.^[1] In Japanese literature, a semi-legendary figure is Ishikawa Goemon.^[10]

In 1910 Maud Isabel Ebbutt characterized the eponymous characters of The Tale of Gamelyn and William of Cloudslee as noble outlaws, who are always historical in tales, and who "stand in the mind of the populace for justice and true liberty against the oppressive tyranny of subordinate officials [...] and are always taken into favour by the king, the fount of true justice".^[11]

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References

Notes

1 2 Wilkinson 1969, p. 428.
1 2 Babinski 1979, pp. 307–309.
1 2 3 Rutherford 1964, p. 815.
1 2 3 Lorenz 2017, p. 67.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Smith 2016, p. 59.
↑ Angiolillo 1979.
1 2 3 Kershner 1992, p. 210.
↑ Jump 2016, p. 72.
↑ Smith 2016, p. 58.
↑ Levy 2008, p. 172.
↑ Richmond 2014, p. 90.

Reference bibliography

Levy, Joel (2008). Ninja: The Shadow Warrior. Sterling. ISBN 9781402763137.
Wilkinson, Endymion (1969). "Reviewed Work(s): The Chinese Knight-Errant by James J. Y. Liu". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 32 (2): 428–429. JSTOR 614041.
Kershner, Richard Brandon (1992). Joyce, Bakhtin, and Popular Literature: Chronicles of Disorder. UNC Press Books. ISBN 9780807843871.
Jump, John D. (2016). "Heroes and Rhetoric 1812–1818". Byron. Routledge Library Editions: Lord Byron. Routledge. ISBN 9781317235057.
Lorenz, Matt (2017). "'The lightning of my being': The Byronic Struggle and Apotheosis of John Proctor". In Marino, Stephen (ed.). Arthur Miller's Century: Essays Celebrating the 100th Birthday of America's Great Playwright. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443896153.
- also available as: Lorenz, Matt (2016). "'The Lightning of My Being': The Byronic Struggle and Apotheosis of John Proctor". The Arthur Miller Journal. 11 (1): 10–20. doi:10.5325/arthmillj.11.1.0010.
Smith, Thomas Ruys (2016). "'The Dying Confession of Joseph Hare': Transatlantic Highwaymen and Southern Outlaws in the Antebellum South". In Hobson, Fred; Ladd, Barbara (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of the Literature of the U.S. South. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199767472.
Angiolillo, Paul Francis Mathew (1979). A Criminal as Hero: Angelo Duca. Regents Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700601844.
Babinski, Hubert F. (1979). "Reviewed Work(s): A Criminal as Hero: Angelo Duca by Paul F. Angiolillo". Italica. 56 (3): 307–309. doi:10.2307/478825. JSTOR 478825.
Rutherford, Andrew (October 1964). "Reviewed Work: The Byronic Hero: Types and Prototypes by Peter L. Thorslev, Jr". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 63 (4): 814–816. JSTOR 27714563.
Richmond, Velma Bourgeois (2014). Chivalric Stories as Children's Literature: Edwardian Retellings in Words and Pictures. McFarland. ISBN 9780786496228.