Guest Post: Who is Jonny Rokeby? Pt 1

February 10, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Who is Jonny Rokeby? Marlowe’s Faustus and the Cormoran Strike Mysteries

A HogwartsProfessor Guest Post by ChrisC, Part 1 of 5

In a previous HogwartsProfessor guest post, I pointed out how Rowling left little textual clues as to the nature of detective Cormoran Strike’s supposed biological father, rock star Jonny Rokeby, lead singer of The Deadbeats.  What I didn’t consider was that in addition to a hidden symbolism behind the trio of Duke Ellington, Robert Plant, and William Blake, there was in fact a fourth level of significance to the scene where Strike ponders a photo of his dear old dad in a booth of the Albion Restaurant (The Silkworm, p 213/303)

The name of this unseen fourth symbol is Christopher Marlowe, and what I now realize is the exact literary echo Rowling leaves behind in the scene between Strike and the picture of his dad.  I’d like to suggest that once we dig up this hidden fourth symbol, and explore its thematic importance, we will have a final clue to exact nature of Jonny Rokeby, as well as a major clue as to how may be portrayed when he makes his onstage debut within the series.

Join me after the jump, won’t you, as we unpack the hidden message of “The Fourth Man.”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Guest Posts

Hunting the White Hart in Harry Potter

February 7, 2018 by Leave a Comment

A Guest Post from Wayne Stauffer in Honor of the White Stag Sightings in Scotland: Enjoy!

I started this pursuit by noticing a visual similarity between Harry’s luminescent white stag patronus in Prisoner of Azkaban and my memory of references to the hunt for the white hart in my readings of medieval literature over the years.[1] So, I wanted to explore how far Rowling uses the image.

The Image

The White Hart is real and not simply a figurative or symbolic image.

Marcus Dunk in “How the magical white hart inspires legends (as well as the name of a thousand pubs),” UK Daily Mail, 14 February 2008, tells us that, biologically, the white hart is a result of a genetic mutation called leucism, which affects fur pigmentation. It is different from albinism in that leucism leaves the eye color natural while albinism turns the eye color red.

Real-life sightings of white stags occur in numerous places in Britain and Europe. An article in the UK Daily Mail, “Pictured: Mythical white stag found in the forests of Gloucestershire,” December 6, 2009, reports that British photographer Ken Grindle managed to photograph a white hart in the Forest of Dean in Gloustershire, UK, thought to be home to an array of unusual and wild creatures, including wild boar, big cats, and white stags. (Now, where have we heard of this place before? 😉 [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Posts

Guest Post: ‘Authentic’ Cormoran Strike

February 4, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Sleuthing for Truth in Albion: William Blake and Concerns with Authenticity in the Cormoran Strike Series

By ChrisC.

The solitary handful of souls who managed to tune in found a left-field surprise waiting for them in the BBC’s adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s The Cuckoo’s Calling.  Near the 20-minute mark of the second episode, rock musician Evan Duffield has dropped into the private consulting office of one, C.B. Strike.  The detective is not in at the moment, but his secretary is holding the fort.  With that in mind, Evan decides now is the perfect moment to demonstrate the mating rituals of the English “Right Prat” in his natural habitat.

What’s remarkable about this scene is how it tosses a curveball to its audience.  What we are given is an immature little boy in a man’s clothing trying to put the moves on Holiday Granger’s Robin, Strike’s resident Girl Friday.  We expect Evan to reveal himself as a complete fool, we don’t expect to him to use a Hermetic English poet to do it. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Guest Posts

Sara Brown: Tolkien’s Literary Alchemy

December 25, 2017 by 3 Comments

ChrisC sent me a Christmas present this morning: a lecture by Signum University’s Dr. Sara Brown on the Literary Alchemy imbedded in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I share this delightful gift with you in the hope you find it as challenging and compelling an argument as I did. The lecture proper begins at 4:00 at the link and is only 20 minutes long — well worth your time, believe me!

Not being any more than a Tolkien fan, I long ago gave up on an alchemical reading of this epic (largely because a book on the subject, Shelton’s Alchemy in Middle-Earth, struck me as border-line absurd in its overreach [e.g., that Tolkien was familiar with medieval Arabic alchemical texts]). I am excited about Dr. Brown’s cogent presentation of the alchemical markers in LOTR because it opens up the possibility, much more credible because of Rowling’s documented close study of that work, that it is an important inspiration for her own use of hermetic symbolism in the Hogwarts Saga.

Please share your thoughts below! Happy holidays to those of you celebrating Western Christmas today!

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Literary Alchemy

Beatrice Groves: ‘Nagini Maledictus’ Literary Allusion in Fantastic Beasts

December 1, 2017 by 13 Comments

A Guest Post from Beatrice Groves, Research Fellow at Trinity College, Oxford University, and author of Literary Allusion in Harry Potter — Enjoy!

John has recently posted on the current fan theory that Claudia Kim’s character in Crimes of Grindelwald – ‘a Maledictus, the carrier of a blood curse that destines her ultimately to transform into a beast’ – will turn into Nagini. 

John notes that ‘the Nagini theory has legs,’ which is a rather satisfying pun. It is pun I particularly like because the serpent in Eden is ‘cursed’ (maledictus) to go without legs:

‘So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.’ (Genesis 3.14)

Or, in the Vulgate (Latin):

‘Et ait Dominus Deus ad serpentem : Quia fecisti hoc, maledictus es inter omnia animantia, et bestias terræ : super pectus tuum gradieris, et terram comedes cunctis diebus vitæ tuæ.’ 

If the Maledictus becomes Nagini it will continue the link between Voldemort and the Satanic snake of Genesis which Rowling began in Harry Potter [John says: see chapter 4 in Prof Groves’ Literary Allusion in Harry Potter]. In Christian visual heritage the Satan-inhabited-snake in Eden is – rather surprisingly – often depicted as half-woman. This rich medieval visual tradition flourished despite the fact that Satan is described by a male pronoun in the biblical text. It culminates in the famous image of Michelanglo’s Satan-as-snake-woman on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. 

Within Harry Potter there are many hints of Nagini as a snake-woman rather than simply a snake. Not only does she take the form of a woman in Deathly Hallows, she also has a disturbingly humanoid relationship with Voldemort from the moment we meet her in Goblet. She tells Voldemort that Frank is listening at the door of the Riddle House and while his not-to-be-named form resembles a baby – ‘the thing… looked like a baby’ (Goblet, Chap. 32) – Nagini keeps him alive with her ‘milk’ fed to him from a ‘bottle’ (Goblet, Chap. 1). Nagini takes the place of the mother to this parody of a child.

Then there is her name. Nagini is a name for Ma Manasa Devi, the Hindu snake goddess: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Beatrice Groves, Fantastic Beasts, Guest Posts