Comments on: On Literary Influence: How Austen and Shakespeare Affect Rowling — and Vice Versa

By: Arabella Figg

Arabella Figg — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:11:50 +0000

Perhaps the day may come when, with “shared text” in hand and pre-read, high-school literature classes will use the series as introduction and contemporary lens through which to read Shakespeare, Austen, etc. Might not kids find more interest in and better understanding of the “boring” classics when Harry Potter is used as comparative literature? Just a hopeful thought.

Miserable with this respiratory infection going around–a cat on the lap is just the ticket…

By: Eeyore

Eeyore — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:50:29 +0000

I also love the quote about Austen. Thanks for a great post, John.

And Beth, I like what Lewis has to say about joining the conversation and the timing. I’d never thought of reading as an ongoing conversation, but that’s a great way to look at it.

I know, for me, reading HP and then reading all the references from John to other books has been a great adventure. I either reread or read books that I’ve always heard of, but I’d never thought much about them–beyond whether I liked them or didn’t. I find that there is so much more in any one book than just the story that’s being told.

I’d read Austen before, but I did find after reading Harry Potter that I read Austen differently and found that I enjoyed the books even more–both Austen and HP.

Pat

By: Beth

Beth — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:50:14 +0000

What an utterly fascinating post, John. Thanks especially for the Leavis quote on Austen. I’ve not read that, and now want to go look for it.

I certainly hope you’re right about the HP books becoming, already, a doorway into conversation about great literature that came before. And I like the organic imagery — it makes sense, I think, when we’re talking about literary influences and how they work “both ways.”

I tend to think of the ongoing stream of literature as a conversation. Every time I read a book, I am reading part of the ongoing conversation, but also joining it by my response. (And on a theological level, everything anyone has ever written or created artistically is a response to the initial Creative Word who began the whole conversation in the first place, whether they’re conscious of it or not.) As C.S. Lewis helpfully pointed out in his introduction to Athnasius’ *On the Incarnation*, our need to read “old books” comes about in part because ““If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said.”

Seems to me that people who really love HP and who are interested in the “literary compost” that helped it grow will realize that HP comes at eleven o’clock, relatively late in the conversation. Austen maybe comes at nine o’clock and the bard at seven o’clock, etc. But many people won’t hear the earlier conversation until they’ve thoroughly joined the later one, and by the time they get there, their ears will be tuned differently because of where they stepped into the stream. Does that make any sense?

Anyway, great post!