The World Turned Inside-Out and Right-Side Up: Harry Potter has More to Teach Us about Literary Criticism than Literary Criticism does about Harry Potter
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The World Turned Inside-Out and Right-Side Up: Harry Potter has More to Teach Us about Literary Criticism than Literary Criticism does about Harry Potter
Keynote Address, St Andrew's University Harry Potter Conference 2012
The World Turned Inside-Out and Right-Side Up: Harry Potter has More to Teach Us about Literary Criticism than Literary Criticism does about Harry Potter
Thank you John for a window into your brilliance! I'm so tickled to have listened to this talk you gave and was stunned, not only by the number of times, but by the significance of "the inside is bigger than the outside." All those magical objects and places whose insides are bigger than their outsides, wow.
And I guess it's comforting to know I'm not the only one who missed the parallelisms the first several times I read the Potter books. I'd been undone and enriched by Kenneth Bailey's explanation of chiasm in his expositions of the parables of Jesus, but I wasn't looking for that jewel of storytelling in a more Western (not Middle Eastern) story.
Which only confirms my materialistic approach, although I'm learning every day how much I've yet to learn, especially in the poetic and alchemical gems of literature.
Thank you John for a window into your brilliance! I'm so tickled to have listened to this talk you gave and was stunned, not only by the number of times, but by the significance of "the inside is bigger than the outside." All those magical objects and places whose insides are bigger than their outsides, wow.
And I guess it's comforting to know I'm not the only one who missed the parallelisms the first several times I read the Potter books. I'd been undone and enriched by Kenneth Bailey's explanation of chiasm in his expositions of the parables of Jesus, but I wasn't looking for that jewel of storytelling in a more Western (not Middle Eastern) story.
Which only confirms my materialistic approach, although I'm learning every day how much I've yet to learn, especially in the poetic and alchemical gems of literature.
So thank you.