Saint George And The Dragon

Five ways to understand the Harry Potter narrative

Harry Potter fans just know they love the record-breaking series of books. But everyone from academics to mythologists, classicists to historians, and literary critics to, well, geeks have a special “template” they perceive at the heart of the tale.

From positing Albus Dumbledore as the infamous Richard III to taking us aloft the scaly back of St. George’s dragon, here are five of our top takes on what’s going on behind the scenes in the Harry Potter narratives.

Like all artists, J.K. Rowling alludes to many earlier literary themes and tropes, says Elizabeth Gruner from the University of Richmond in Virginia. Clearly, she draws on the medieval quest narrative, not to mention the sacrificial victim themes that informed Christian iconography, she notes. These influenced other fantasy writers, among them Christian theologian C.S. Lewis (“The Chronicles of Narnia”) and “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien.

Ms. Rowling’s genius is in drawing as well on several realistic literary traditions, says Ms. Gruner, such as the “school story, best known in England with 'Tom Brown’s School Days,' and the ever-popular orphan narrative.”

Charles Dickens is one of her great predecessors, she notes, but let’s not forget the “social realism in Jane Austen’s mode – the satire of the Dursleys, the awareness of the social class issues within Hogwarts,” she adds.

Rowling gives everyone something familiar to connect with, says Gruner. “Lots of kids (and adults) who thought they didn’t like the “swords and sorcerers” kind of fantasy (familiar, again, from Tolkien) were drawn in by her comedy, her social realism, and her characterization,” she adds.

In this scenario, Albus Dumbledore plays the role of none other than Richard III, the king so maligned by the Bard.

For those who need to brush up, not just on their Shakespeare, but on some basic British history, the Wars of the Roses were fought mostly between 1455 and 1485 between two houses of the Plantaganet dynasty, Lancaster and York, represented by red and white roses, respectively.

This scenario matches up characters from the books with members of the British royal family of the day, according to Miami University professor emerita, Nancy Nicholson. The Tudors are a parallel with the Black family, she says. Draco Malfoy is Henry VII who kills Richard III (Albus Dumbledore) and Voldemort is a “distant, starving cousin" named John Mowbray.

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For those not very familiar with St. George and the Dragon, he is said to have slayed the following story could be interesting. The episode of Saint George and the Dragon annexed to the hagiography of Saint George was originally from the East, brought back with the Crusaders and retold with the courtly dependencies belonging to the genus of the novel. The oldest known representations of the pattern are of Cappadocia tenth or eleventh century and the eleventh-century Georgia earlier in the iconography of Eastern Orthodoxy, George had been depicted as a soldier since at least the seventh century.The first known surviving accounts of the episode dragon is an eleventh-century Georgian text. The dragon motif was combined with the already standardized Passio Georgii Vincent de Beauvais Historiale encyclopedic "Speculum, and Jacques de Voragine Golden Legend (ca. 1260) guarantees its popularity in the Middle Ages as a literary and pictorial subject. Legend has gradually become a part of the Christian tradition on St. George and has been used in many festivals in the future.

Saint George and the Dragon

Saint George and the dragon

Saint George and the dragon

Saint George and the Dragon

Saint George and the dragon, a golden legend