Invitation Only!

Thank you for checking out my attempt to create a literary blog/community about the Harry Potter book series. Ironically (title-wise), I only anticipate invited individuals to participate, although everyone reading this is free to share it with anyone else.

I decided upon an academically-daunting title for the blog. It sounds more elevated than it truly will be. Inter-texuality is basically making connections between different texts. After my readings of J. K. Rowlings' series, I see many different sources for her tale. I find Homer's The Odyssey within Harry Potter. I find Holocaust literature, including Night, within Harry Potter. I find the Arthurian Literary Tradition within Harry Potter, especially The Once and Future King. I find political literature in the spirit of George Orwell, and Animal Farm, within Harry Potter. What books, stories, tales, poems, history, do you find within the Harry Potter series? Do you see any Charles Dickens within? Are there other classics within Childrens' Literature that make a connection? What about Science Fiction icons such as The Lord of the Rings?

Many of these "findings" within the series consistently hover around the theme of Love. Love, as a theme, can be categorized in many ways. There is Love versus Intolerance, for example. Or Love versus apathy, indifference, or ignorance, too. There are also political themes such as power and the use of media and history. Rowlings' series also employs many rhetorical devices, figures of speech, and literary elements. Why not explore these, too, when analyzing such a literary work?

I will begin this endeavor with an extended analysis of Chapter One of the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcer's Stone, in the next post. Before I conclude this one, though, I will include a spiffy little connection between The Odyssey and Harry Potter:

On page 15 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:

"Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.
'Yes,' said Dumbledore, ' He'll have that scar forever.' (Dumbledore referring to young Harry)
'Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?' (Prof. McGonagall)
'Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well - give him here, Hagrid - we'd better get this over with.' " (Dumbledore)

In Book XIX of The Odyssey, Odysseus has returned to Ithaca in disguise, but his "nanny" or nurse of his birth and childhood, Eurycleia, discovers his true identity. How?

Book XIX, Lines 66-67:

"The old nurse held his leg within her palms; / she felt the scar. Touch was enough . . . "

Directly previous to these words is Odysseus' description of how he was gored by a wild boar as a youth just above the knee. Allen Mandelbaum's translation, which I am using in conjunction with a pre-IB blog about The Odyssey, does not stipulate which knee was scarred.

I briefly consulted Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces regarding scars and epic heroes and found nothing, but this is something, especially with the importance placed upon Harry's scar throughout the Potter series. Can anyone think of any other scars that are important in literature? And please, please, make reference to the non-stop humor liberally sprinkled throughout this tale.

Thank you again for reading and, hopefully, participating. Please leave comments, suggestions, and insults in the comment section.