Hepzibah Smith, Tobias Snape, & Nathaniel Hawthorne...

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 140588


Talisman wrote: 
> I must say that reflecting on the HP series has frequently brought 
> Hawthorne to mind, more for genre comparison than anything else.
> As I've posted several times, long ago (at least back to 2003), I
> consider Rowling's style a renewed version of Romanticism,
> the genre to which Hawthorne's works belong. 

Potioncat:
Erm, could you give us a brief definition of Romanticism, for those 
of us who last studied literature decades ago?

>Talisman: 
> I must also say, at the outset, that though I would like to find
> Hawthorne in the HP series, and may in fact find interesting
> similarities, I can't quite bring myself to believe that Rowling--a 
> woman who has insisted on all-Brit actors for the HP movies, and 
who 
> has indicated in an interview that she will not portray 
> any "American" witches, beyond the contingent seen at the QWC-- 
> would intentionally base, even part, of her series on the works or 
> life of such a quintessential American writer.

Potioncat:
Her work has been compared to Mark Twain too...I'm not sure how much 
American literature is read in the UK, but I find it hard to believe 
as well. However, I could accept that if she's read Hawthorne, she 
would have been influenced by him. How could she not be?

I've snipped some great information from Taliman's post. But based on 
Hawthorne's treatment of witch-hunters, I'm beginning to think JKR 
may make Tobias an American Muggle. It would be a very fitting dig at 
the modern witch hunters who blasted the HP series.

Oh the horror! Poor Severus would have quite a bit more to overcome 
than we ever suspected. In spite of all the other sources for the 
name Severus, it does sound like something a Puritan would name his 
son.