Sir Harry Potter - Wednesday 7/20

Wednesday proved to be another interesting day. After the entertaining events of Tuesday, it had the potential to be a somewhat down day. However, it was far from that. In the afternoon, the British Literature II class met again. The discussion topic for the class was a selection  of readings from the Harry Potter books. I know that a lot of English professors think that the Harry Portter phenomenon is a lark, and that teaching the material of the novels is also a lark, despite the fact (or perhaps as a result of the fact) that Harry Potter based readings are the foundations of entire courses at major U.S. universities, particularly Ivy League schools.

My take on the Harry Potter books is that despite their reputation as "kids' books" they have value in terms of their Legendarium, to borrow Tolkien's word. There is a mythos that is created over the course of the seven novels that compares (not on an equal literary footing perhaps) with the mythos at the heart of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings stories. Many of the elements that are in the Harry Potter stories mirrors the elements in Tolkien's stories, and they mirror the stories of the Arthurian literature as well. They are human ideals, dreams, desires, and myths that span the whole human condition in many ways, and most specifically the western traditions we live under in both Britain and the U.S. If those ideals and ideas (such as loyalty, honor, duty, and nationalism) can be made accessible to young readers, I'm all for it. I don't always agree with many 20th and 21st century colleagues who seem to embrace a somewhat more cynical view that the ideas carried in these stories are too idealistic and naive for a modern world. 

Our in class discussions focused on specific Arthurian parallels between the selections drawn from the Harry Potter books and the tales of King Arthur. It also looked at the deeper parallels in terms of concepts and myth/story elements.

After class, I had another opportunity to take in a play. This time, I went to the Globe Theatre for a second time. This was the trip to see Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing. It was a fabulous experience, even though it was raining. The actors just worked it into the performance without breaking character, and no one (not even those standing in the yard in rain gear) seemed to really notice it. The staging was very visually engaging, including the large Morris Dance puppets that passed through the standing audience on one occasion. The acting was strong with an excellent cast all the way to the supporting roles. The high comedy was witty and the low comedy raucous. Dogberry (a character in the play) was particularly fun to watch. It is really hard to beat a Shakespeare comedy for true humor on every level - engaging both the intellect and the visceral. Though there is no photography allowed during the performance, I did take a couple of pictures before it began.

This is the stage area as it was set up for the play, from my seat in the front row on the third tier of seating.

Here is a view of te seating area including the yard, where the audience has to stand throughout the performance.

the stage at the Globe Theatre

me before the performance - this stoic look was very soon to be broken into laughing and smiling at the play