I have a guilty confession: I really like watching old re-runs of Hogan’s Heroes. Yes, Hogan’s Heroes, with the hokey tunnels and wacky disguises. Probably one reason I enjoy it is because my kids think it’s hilarious; we don’t have cable, and it comes on every night on one of the stations we get with the antenna. It also reminds me of my childhood and the silly stuff we loved then, like Gilligan’s Island and Batman. However, after doing a little research, I began to realize that there was something more at work here, something far more complex than tunnels in tree trunks and microphones hidden under portraits of Hitler. Just as we see in the rich and complex texts we discuss here, even campy Hogan has something intriguing to say about fear and the power of laughter. [Read more…]
Riddikulus! Humor as a Weapon against Fear and Evil
Guest Post #3 – The ‘Harrying of Hell’ The Harrowing in Philosopher’s Stone and Deathly Hallows (Beatrice Groves)
Beatrice Groves, Research Lecturer and tutor at Trinity College, Oxford, and author of the just published Literary Allusion in Harry Potter finishes off her discussion of the thematic axis of the Hogwarts Saga, Stone-Goblet-Hallows, with a brilliant revelation of the shared Christian symbolism in each of the beginning, central, and final Harry Potter novels. It is Part 3 of 3 Guest Posts Professor Groves will share with us to celebrate the publication of her wonderful book.
The ‘Harrying of Hell:’ The Harrowing in Philosopher’s Stone and Deathly Hallows — Part 3 of 3 Literary Allusion Guest Posts
As noted in my previous blog-post, a deepening of the Christian symbolism in Harry Potter is visible along the Stone-Goblet-Hallows story axis, as early events gain in significance as they are repeated through the series. This is likewise the case in the topic explored in this concluding post: the echoes of the Harrowing of Hell within Harry Potter. There is a comic harrowing in Philosopher’s Stone, a brief echo of this scene in Goblet of Fire and then a final fulfilment of this harrowing imagery in Deathly Hallows.
The Harrowing of Hell is mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed. It was a particularly popular part of the Christian narrative in the medieval period and describes how – between his death and resurrection – Jesus enters hell, frees its captive souls and defeats the powers of darkness. It is depicted in the medieval dramatisations of salvation history (known as the mystery cycles) as well as stained glass, manuscript illuminations and poems such as Langland’s Piers Plowman. And it is part of the medieval aesthetic of Harry Potter’s world that its imagery of the triumph of good over evil draws on the harrowing.
It might be natural to assume that ‘harrowing’ refers to Christ ‘ploughing up’ hell – a verb which the Oxford English Dictionary vividly describes as ‘to break up, crush, or pulverize with a harrow.’ The OED claims, however, that the ‘harrowing’ of hell comes instead from the verb ‘harry’ – which means ‘to lay waste, sack, pillage, spoil.’ This is obviously pleasing for the current discussion as it means we could talk of the ‘Harrying’ (rather than the ‘Harrowing’) of hell.
But it also means that the name does not point to the destruction of hell but its despoliation: the crucial narrative event is the freeing of captives. The climactic harrowing of Deathly Hallows – discussed at the end of this post – is anticipated by earlier, comic examples which focus precisely on this aspect; moments in which Harry is freed by his wizarding friends from the hell that is his life with the Dursleys. [Read more…]
The Three Fates Meet The Weird Sisters: Cormoran Strike, Harry Potter, and the Question of Fate, Free Will, and Choice
On 7 July, I thought to check J. K. Rowling’s twitter feed to see if she had posted anything about the anniversary of the 7/7 terrorist bombings that hit London in 2005. Though the 52 deaths and 784 injuries caused by four suicide bombers on 7/7 is recalled in the UK something like 9/11 is by Americans, she did not tweet or re-tweet any of the many articles and messages about the event online.
I was struck while at her page, however, by the header, that is, the picture she has placed across the top of her Twitter page. I do not keep up with these things but the header picture had changed from the last time I dropped in. The current Rowling Twitter Header is a marble relief sculpture by Johann Gottfried Schaddow on the tomb of Prince Alexander von Mark in Berlin called ‘The Three Morai’ or just ‘The Three Fates’ (picture above).
The only reason Rowling readers should care about such things — why I write this blog post — is something she shared in January 2017 about a previous header: “It’s hard to find a header that sums up everything I’m working on at the moment, but this painting comes close! It’s by Harmen Steenwyck.”
The faculty here at HogwartsProfessor spent some time back then discussing that painting, ‘Allegory of the Vanities,’ amongst ourselves about what it might mean in terms of Lethal White, the Cormoran Strike mystery we’re waiting on and the work we assumed The Presence was working on then. We came up with little more than ‘remember death.’ Which given the first word of the Lethal White title and it being a murder mystery, did not seem to warrant a post. I’ll return to that in a moment after noting that Rowling was then working on two novels, one a Strike mystery as Robert Galbraith, the other of unknown subject matter as J. K. Rowling.
The reason to take a moment to reflect on Rowling’s choice of Twitter Headers is if what was true of ‘Allegory of the Vanities’ continues to be true, i.e., that she is showing us a picture of what her current work is about. That conditional clause does not seem a great leap to me.
What makes her choice of the ‘Three Fates’ mortuary relief that much more interesting in this regard is that Rowling has had a Twitter Header with the Three Fates as her Twitter Header at least once before, probably twice. The certain one is a 16th century Flemish tapestry called ‘The Triumph of Death’ or ‘The Three Fates.’
It hangs in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. We’re told at the page dedicated to the tapestry on the museum’s website that: [Read more…]
“What’s With The Pop-Up Box, John?” New Video Blog at PotterPundits.com Free Online Classes Start in August
I’ve been talking since January about “big changes” coming to HogwartsProfessor. The pop-up box you’ve seen today offering a free 50 page pdf (70 pages, actually, but it’s magazine formatted) means that at last these long anticipated changes are beginning to roll out.
The document, ‘The Top Twelve J. K. Rowling Story Sources Every Potter Needs to Read (and Re-Read),’ is a valuable, voluble guide to books that helped shape the Hogwarts Saga in light of how they ‘influenced’ the author. More important, the guide discusses how she significantly re-shaped or adapted these story sources to her ends. It’s nothing like a complete survey, of course, but ‘Top Twelve’ is a fun start — and one with some startling choices and revelations even for long time students of Rowling’s artistry and meaning. Please do check it out — and let me know what you think!
The goal in offering it via a downloadable document rather than twelve separate posts here at HogwartsProfessor, beyond the significant convenience to readers of owning them and greater punch of offering them all together, is to begin gathering email addresses for a new project. Later this week — tomorrow? — we’re launching a subscribers only website, PotterPundits.com, where I will be posting weekly videos (‘vlogs’) and offering free online classes.
Which online classroom possibility has been my hope and aim since 2002. That goal is something I’ve only shared with close friends through the years, so let me catch you up on the quest if you’re a little confused or even put-off by the pop-up box.
For fifteen years I’ve tried to answer two questions: “Why do readers love the Harry Potter stories the way we do?” and “What is the most effective way to communicate answers to the first question to the greatest number of people?”
Speaking frankly, I’ve been pretty successful in pushing the international discussion of the first question in unexpected and helpful directions. And I have tried almost every venue — live, published and recorded — to reach all the serious readers interested in the answers scholars and lay literary detectives have teased out of repeated readings of the Hogwarts Saga. Weblogs, podcasts, newspaper articles, television appearances, keynote conference talks, university lectures and classes, and books —
And it’s been a bust, truth be told, even if the ‘rolling credits’ of the last fifteen years have earned me the only slightly ironic title of ‘the Dean of Harry Potter Scholars.’
I have been looking for a truly effective, accessible, and affordable way to deliver an in-depth, coherent, and something approaching comprehensive study of Harry Potter and Rowling’s other work. Everything I’ve tried to date has been frustrating in being relatively scattershot, superficial, and impersonal. ‘Ineffective,’ in a word.
How I can offer the equivalent of a semester’s study of the Hogwarts Saga at a major university, something like Cornell and Colorado Colleges’ ‘Block Plan,’ that anyone, anywhere, can access and afford has been my semi-private quest since my first public offerings at Barnes and Noble University in 2002. I think at last I’ve put together the marriage of software, recording tools, and exciting new material that means at last that this intensive study will soon be possible.
‘Soon’ as in ‘beginning next month.’
To celebrate this sea-change, to begin gathering subscribers for the free PotterPundits video postings, and to reward those friends and readers who have been working with me for so long towards a satisfying answer to the “Whence Potter Mania?” mystery, consequently, I am giving away the equivalent of a short book reflecting some of the discoveries I’ve made this past year in the review of critical literature necessary for my PhD thesis. The ‘Top Twelve’ guide is free for the taking and you can unsubscribe anytime you like from my emails that will bring to your inbox links to the PotterPundits video posts and online class offerings.
I hope of course you will join me next month for the first class there, the ‘Potter Pundits Summer School,’ three challenging lectures I’ll be giving with a webinar featuring a special guest and a live Q&A session on the talks. To say I am “excited” about this would be a comic understatement. It promises to be a mind-bending set of talks, the cutting-edge of Potter studies, and, the real hope, ‘Summer School’ is possibly the advent of a much better way to study Rowling’s work, one much more satisfying for both teachers and students.
Thanks in advance for joining me on this adventure to take Potter Studies a quantum leap upwards in accessibility, affordability, and effectiveness. And for sharing your thoughts on ‘Top Twelve Rowling Story Sources’ and questions about PotterPundits in the comment boxes below!
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