NYTimes.com Article: An Improbable Sequel: Harry Potter and the Ivory Tower

[Schlobin at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19320

This article from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by schlobin at aol.com.

Hilarious comments about how Professor Tolkien was seen as "less than serious" because he drank beer and sang Viking songs in the original......

/-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\


Let NYTimes.com Come to You

Sign up for one of our weekly e-mails 
and the news will come directly to you. 
YOUR MONEY brings you a wealth of analysis
and information about personal investing.  
CIRCUITS plugs you into the latest on 
personal technology. TRAVEL DISPATCH offers 
you a jump on special travel deals and news.  

http://email.nytimes.com/email/email.jsp?eta5

\----------------------------------------------------------/

An Improbable Sequel: Harry Potter and the Ivory Tower


By STEPHEN KINZER

 

ALAMAZOO, Mich.  Millions of books after Harry Potter became the
most beguiling wizard of the modern age, scholars have welcomed him
into the temple of Muggle academia.

 "If you look closely, you see a lot of Arthurian components," said
Heather Arden, a professor at the University of Cincinnati who has
drawn parallels between J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories and
classic medieval legends. "So much of it fits into wonderful
ancient patterns." 

 That a best-selling children's book would be the subject of
scholarly attention isn't a surprise; after all, academics have
delved into the finer points of everything from Martha Stewart to
table salt. But this engagement with the modern world is a hallmark
of the International Congress on Medieval Studies, a yearly
conference held at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, which
attracted Ms. Arden and about 3,000 other scholars earlier this
month. For an academic conference it is remarkably unstuffy. There
is no vetting of papers, and a platform is open to almost anyone
with an idea.

 One of the big ideas this year was the persistence of medieval
archetypes in popular culture. In addition to Harry Potter, the
scholars discussed the Hobbit series of J. R. R. Tolkien, which is
considered to have been modeled on themes from medieval literature,
as well as the continuing resonance of medieval figures ranging
from Merlin to Thomas Aquinas. There were a dozen papers about Joan
of Arc, and half a dozen about that equally extraordinary woman,
Hildegard von Bingen.

 "We're talking about models and frames of reference," said Paul E.
Szarmach, director of the Kalamazoo-based Medieval Institute, which
organizes the congress. "If you take a psychological view, there
must be medieval bits in the template of human understanding. We're
putting ourselves back into the Arthurian story. That accounts for
the popularity of Tolkien and Rowling."

 For medievalists, the patterns and ideas from the Middle Ages 
the period that stretches from the end of the fifth century to the
middle of the 15th in Europe  are still valuable tools for
understanding today's world.

 Jonathan Gil Harris of Ithaca College, for example, gave a dinner
speech comparing Hannibal Lecter, the most famous cannibal in
modern cinema, to Shakespeare's similarly inclined warrior, Titus
Andronicus.

 "He wasn't working in a vacuum," Mr. Harris said. "Especially in
his early plays, he was drawing on dramatic conventions that can be
traced back to medieval forms of theater. The Hannibal Lecter films
use this form that Shakespeare transmitted, which is to keep
pushing something in your face until you say, `This is too much.' "

 Shakespeare is not normally considered a medieval figure, but Mr.
Harris and a handful of other scholars have managed to establish
what he called "a Shakespeare Bantustan" at the Kalamazoo
conference, specializing in medieval influences on Shakespeare's
work.

 One of the favorite subjects this year was Tolkien, himself a
medievalist. This marks a turnaround of sorts for Tolkien, an
Oxford philologist who left several academic projects unfinished
but created one of the 20th century's most beloved fantasy lands,
Middle Earth, populated by Hobbits and other magical creatures.

 Tolkien liked to spend evenings drinking beer while singing viking
songs in their original languages, and some of his colleagues
considered him less than fully serious. After his death in 1973 one
colleague lamented the loss of "a very fine medieval scholar who
might have done so much more work of lasting value."

 Jane Chance of Rice University said experts had compared Tolkien's
first fantasy work, "The Hobbit," to the Beowulf saga, and his
later trilogy, "Lord of the Rings," to the works of Spenser and
Malory.

 "Tolkien refashioned the old medieval epics into what we now call
fantasy literature," Ms. Chance said. "He's the bridge figure who
updated the genre. Harry Potter is infused with the Middle Earth
ethos, which is about the ordinary or smaller man who goes on to
win great victories."

 In keeping with the conference's informal atmosphere, the
professors who discussed Harry Potter assumed roles as witches on
the faculty at Hogwarts, the school where he studies wizardry.
Their paper was in the form of a dialogue about Harry's proposed
senior thesis comparing Hogwarts to the court of King Arthur. The
professors, Ms. Arden and Kathryn Lorenz, started by noting
physical similarities like invisible doors, magical animals and the
use of parchment, sealing wax and coats of arms. From there they
turned to thematic devices like the ease with which characters move
between normal and abnormal worlds.

 "Like Arthur, Harry is destined to make an exemplary stand against
the forces of evil and chaos," Ms. Arden said. "The phenomenal
popularity of the Potter chronicles may be linked to the way they
reflect the underlying attractions of the Arthurian world. They
give their readers a picture of a wonderful community centered on a
superhuman leader and made up of exceptional individuals of whom
the hero is the most exceptional."

 And that explains the continuing hold that medieval themes have on
people, she added. "The hero himself, whether Arthur, Percivale or
our own Harry Potter, shows us that a seemingly ordinary orphan
child can turn out to be an exceptional person. Perhaps the
greatest quality shared by Harry and the Arthurian hero is to show
us the power of imagination to transform the established boundaries
between things and people, to show us the possibilities of other
worlds." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/12/arts/12MIDD.html?ex=991676293&ei=1&en=03b078a1d26c9673

/-----------------------------------------------------------------\


Visit NYTimes.com for complete access to the
most authoritative news coverage on the Web,
updated throughout the day.

Become a member today! It's free!

http://www.nytimes.com?eta


\-----------------------------------------------------------------/

HOW TO ADVERTISE
---------------------------------
For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters 
or other creative advertising opportunities with The 
New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson 
Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media 
kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo

For general information about NYTimes.com, write to 
help at nytimes.com.  

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company