Ginevra SHIP

[antoshachekhonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 98840

> 
> Pippin:
<snip> 
> ::Pippin trots out one of her favorite hobby horses::
> The Harry Potter novels resemble in plot and structure the child 
> exile romances which are the oldest recorded stories in the 
> Matter of England. In these romances, such as "King Horn" and 
> "Havelock the Dane", the hero is a boy, deprived of his family and 
> inheritance by the collusion of an exterior foe and a traitor. He is 
> given to cruel relatives or strangers and is kept ignorant  of his 
> true rank and worth, while the kingdom he should have inherited 
> falls into disarray. 
> 
> The hero must survive periodic encounters with the foe who 
> murdered his parents and is now attempting to destroy him, and 
> who fails only because he insists on trying to kill the hero in 
> absurdly elaborate ways.  However, the stories mostly concern 
> the hero's attempts to achieve status and  deal with social 
> situations.  He is taken under the guidance of a paternal figure 
> who raises him to manhood. While the hero  struggles to 
> discover the true nature of those around him, the good 
> characters immediately perceive his worth.
> 
>  The hero does not woo his future bride. It is she who pursues 
> him, often as one of many other young women. Eventually, of 
> course, the hero  defeats the villain, exposes the traitor,  recovers 
> his throne, restores order to the kingdom, unites with the 
> heroine, and they live happily ever after.
> 
<snip>

Antosha:

Wow. I really should have read more of the pre-Chaucer stuff in college. There certainly do 
seem to be some parallels here. Some of them are explicable as archetypes, in the Jung/
Joseph Campbell sense--they work out patterns that are intrinsic to the human mind. But 
some of them certainly seem to be quite specific. Thanks for sharing, Pippin.