Literature 137: Harry Potter: Literary Allusion, Childrens Literature, and Popular Culture

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Literature 137 Harry Potter Literary
Allusion Childrens Literature and Popular
Culture

• Some definitions and questions

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But first

• Heres what I learned about the class Monday
• Out of 90 students enrolled in the course
  several are brand new students who are in college
  for the first time while some are seniors
  getting ready to graduate this semester.
• Eight students have not read any of the HP books
  while a few others have read the books in the
  series more times than the professor!

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What this all means is that

• Any material covered will always be too easy for
  some students and too difficult for others.
• As I try to find a middle ground please be
  patient and dont be afraid to ask questions.

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Back to

• Some definitions and questions

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Literary Allusion

• allusion (a-LOO-zhuhn)  a reference in a
  literary work to a person place or thing in
  history or another work of literature. Allusions
  are often indirect or brief references to
  well-known characters or events.
• www.uncp.edu glossary of literary terms

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Why allusions are important

• Allusions are often used to summarize broad
  complex ideas or emotions in one quick powerful
  image.

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An example

• For example to communicate the idea of
  self-sacrifice one may refer to Jesus as part of
  Jesus story portrays him dying on the cross in
  order to save mankind (Matthew 2745-56).

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How allusions work

• Thus allusions serve an important function in
  writing in that they allow the reader to
  understand a difficult concept by relating to an
  already familiar story.
• In other words allusions are shorthand.
• But in order to understand them you need to
  know what they are shorthand for.

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This is Minerva McGonagall
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And this is Minerva the Roman Goddess
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Allusion

• Minervas name is a literary allusion that
  reveals a lot about her character
• The Roman goddess Minerva is based on the Greek
  goddess Athena who was the goddess of wisdom and
  the craft of war (among other things)
• She was a warrior goddess and also known as
  Athena the virgin

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Layers of meaning

• When used well literary allusions add layers of
  meaning to a work of literature so that it has
  more depth as well as more ambiguity.
• When we know that Minerva is both a goddess of
  wisdom and of war it makes sense that McGonagall
  turns from a schoolmarm into a warrior leading
  Hogwarts in a large-scale battle by the end of
  the series.

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What do the following names mean

• Argus

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Argus

• Argusgiant in Greek mythology a watchman with a
  hundred sets of eyes (200 in total)

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What do the following names mean

• Sibyll

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Sibyll Trelawney

• Sibyll In ancient times a Sibyl was a prophetess
  who in a state of ecstasy and under influence of
  Apollo prophesied without being consulted

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What do the following names mean

• Lucius

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Lucius

• Luciuscommon first name among Roman nobility
  possible reference to Lucifer. Lucius was the
  name of a Roman emperor who fought against King
  Arthur in legend.

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Childrens Literature

• writings specifically intended for children or
  that children have made their own.

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Why study Childrens Lit

• Arent childrens books just simplistic little
  books about bunnies

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Or

• Just books with easy vocabulary used to teach
  things to children

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No!

• Quite a few childrens books are complex dense
  and beautifully written works of literature that
  are read and studied by people of all ages.

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Books like this one

• Have complex story lines difficult vocabularies
  and are filled with literary allusions and other
  sophisticated literary devices.
• Most importantly the best childrens books dont
  talk down to child readers!

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Books like Alice in Wonderland
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The Hobbit
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The Secret Garden
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and others are all studied in literature classes
around the world using the same critical tools we
use to study Shakespeare or Faulkner.
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Indeed in some ways childrens books require
more complex reading strategies than texts
written for an adult audience. Heres why . .
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• Childrens texts occupy a unique and complex
  place in our culture they are written by adults
  published and sold by adults often bought by
  adults for children and often read aloud to
  children. In these ways childrens texts are
  filtered through adult interpretations at every
  level.

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What this means is that childrens books
movies toys television shows and games do not
reflect so much what our children actually are
but instead embody the qualities we hope our
children will possess nostalgic visions of our
own childhoods or what we wish our childhoods
could have been and all of our collective adult
anxieties about what we worry our children might
become.
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In this way texts for children become a
barometer measuring a cultures relationship with
its children its hopes and fears about the
future and the values that society holds most
dear.
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This is why people get so touchy about
childrens books When people debate
childrens books they are debating the values
being passed on to child readers.
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One of many Websites arguing that HP lures
children into Witchcraft and Satanismhttp//www
.crossroad.to/text/articles/HarryWitchcraft.htm
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From The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of
1990-2000 (compiled by the American Library
Association) 1.Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin
Schwartz2.Daddys Roommate by Michael
Willhoite3.I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by
Maya Angelou4.The Chocolate War by Robert
Cormier5.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by
Mark Twain6.Of Mice and Men by John
Steinbeck7.Harry Potter (Series) by J.K.
Rowling8.Forever by Judy Blume9.Bridge to
Terabithia by Katherine Paterson10.Alice
(Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor11.Heather
Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman12.My Brother
Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and
Christopher Collier13.The Catcher in the Rye by
J.D. Salinger14.The Giver by Lois Lowry . . .
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Most of the books on the ALAs most censored
list are books written for children and
adolescents because well-meaning adults want to
protect child readers from dangerous ideas.
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Dangerous threat to adult authority

• For example the Captain Underpants books are
  high on the list because some adults worry they
  teach children to question authority and to
  misspell words. Really.

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Where it all begins to come together . . .

• Another thing the books on the most censored
  list have in common is that they are considered
  low-brow texts works of popular culture not
  considered to have literary merit. Theres
  loads of sex and violence in the works of
  Shakespeare but these arent on the list because
  they are classics.

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Popular Culture

• Mass-produced
• Consumed by the masses
• Everyday culture
• Low-brow
• Short-lived and trendy
• So why would we study it at a university

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Statement from BGSUs Pop Culture Program

• Popular culture studies everyday life including
  but not limited to everything that is mass
  produced by us and for us. Its subject matter is
  the world in which we live relax and have fun.
  By examining television programs movies cars
  houses music museums celebratory events
  holidays magazines and many other manifestations
  of culture insights can be used to examine
  society presently and historically.

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We study Pop Culture

• To figure out who we are what our values are
  what we believe and to understand the complex
  interactions that make up contemporary society
• This means that we dont just read the HP books
  we also need to read their contexts of production
  (everything that surrounds the books like the
  movies fan sites fan fiction spoilers on the
  Internet etc.)

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Is Harry Potter popular culture

• Lets go back to the definition . . .

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• Mass-produced
• Consumed by the masses
• Everyday culture
• Low-brow
• Short-lived and trendy

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Can a text be both popular and a quality work of
literature How is literary merit defined
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Literary merit

• Is hard to define
• Some say it is subjective
• Some say it comes from cultural consensus when
  enough people agree that a work of literature has
  merit then it has merit.

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Scholarship

• One measure of merit is the level of debate that
  exists about a work of literature how many
  literary scholars are willing to take the time to
  argue about the meaning of a text.
• Heres a link to a bibliography of HP
  scholarship http//www.eulenfeder.de/hpliteratur.
  html

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Critic William Safire dismisses scholarship about
the books saying

• The trouble is not that children are being lured
  into belief in witchcraft as some tut-tutting
  clerics complain Western civilization has
  survived Merlins magic in the tales of King
  Arthur. Nor will poor children be corrupted by
  tales of life in upper-middle-class English
  boarding schools.The trouble is that grown-ups
  are buying these books ostensibly to read to
  kids but actually to read for themselves. As
  Philip Hensher warns in the Independent
  newspaper this leads to the infantilization of
  adult culture the loss of a sense of what a
  classic really is.

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This course counters Safire on two points

• If classic works of literature are defined
  through use of sophisticated literary devices
  through character development through intricate
  story telling and through the use of literary
  allusions for symbolic purpose then the HP books
  qualify.
• Also many non-western cultures and cultures in
  the past did not so rigidly segregate stories
  based on the age of the implied reader. Indeed
  some of the best classic stories we still value
  today like myths and folktales were told to
  audiences of all ages.

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• This course assumes the Harry Potter novels have
  literary merit and are worth studying at the
  college level.
• But we will also consider other broader
  questions about literature and culture beyond
  just merit.

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The Reading Experience

• How have public discussions and controversies
  about these books shaped our perceptions of the
  original texts and shaped us as readers
• In other words we dont read in a vacuum and the
  ways we interpret a text are influenced by all
  sorts of factors.

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• How is the nature of a literary text and of
  reading re-defined when literary works evolve
  into a series of films Internet fan sites works
  of fan fiction video games and action figures
  How might these repetitions of representation
  (often oversimplified distorted simulations of
  the original narrative) affect our reading
  experiences

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films

• When you read about Ron do you picture Rupert
  Grint from the films

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hype

• How is your reading experience affected when you
  or your friends or whole family stayed up all
  night reading a book you bought at a midnight
  release party

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celebrity

• How many authors are this recognizable or famous
  or wealthy or have this much control over a text

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fans

• Are fans fanatics
• Careful critical readers of literature
• People who need to get a life
• Or a community of people with similar interests

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Is fan art (drawings stories films puppet
pals music etc.)An interpretationAn odeA
parodyAn act of creationAn act of
obsessionAll of the above
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And even bigger questions

• Does literature as it has traditionally been
  defined even exist anymore in a global
  commercial mass media culture Within these
  contemporary contexts who owns a text The
  author Corporate interests Readers Fans who
  can cut paste rewrite and remix

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For next class read

• the essay Borah Rebecca Sutherland. Apprentice
  Wizards Welcome Fan Communities and the Culture
  of Harry Potter In The Ivory Tower and Harry
  Potter Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon.
  Ed. Lana A. Whited. Columbia MO University of
  Missouri Press 2002 which is in your course
  packet.