Harry Potter

What is the genuine lit. criticism of Harry Potter? I know we like to spam H. Bloom's writing on the series, which I can't deny has some water to it, but I think it's a compelling thesis to assert that Harry Potter as a seven book sequence has far surpassed any other piece of literature in the last 30 years for popularity, longevity, and impact on the world around us.

JK Rowling may not have been a perfect author, but I think it's undeniable that her literature has had a huge impact on the world. Before anyone says that its not literature, and that it's just a series of children's books, I would like to counter that with the idea that children's books being the most important books of our time is not inappropriate or unreasonable when considering the fact that most of, if not all of, written work today is written at somewhere along the level of craftmanship as far as complexity is concerned of a children's book.

Save for esoteric blindly hoping, staunch traditionalists who fear to step out from the shadows of the fast receding literary greats of the 20th century, and even before then, I don't think there is anyone that can assert that there has been any great production of literature in the last 30- 40 years that can say it has the same amount of impact as Harry Potter has.

I would compare DFW to the academic world of literature to JKR to the state of our world as a whole. JKR's Harry Potter is the last piece of sincerity before postmodernism ravaged the medium (Just look at the author's twitter now), while DFW's writings were the last pieces of sincerity that people read as the beginning of post modernism, or at least felt inoculated to admitting it existed at that point. The only difference between the two writers is their breadth and market; DFW was in the heritage of literature as a whole, while Rowling was writing as a layman from a cafe in scotland somewhere.

What do you guys think?

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Rowling should be shot and the books arent really "well" written. The movies were far superior in craftsmanship even when having to be confined into pieces that last around 2 hours and 20 minutes

literally a thread for this trash already

I appreciate the sincerity behind this post, but as this user said, those books weren't very well-written and thusly don't have much artistic merit. The books are fun and engaging to read, but unlike true literature, Harry Potter doesn't raise ideas and questions that one can gnaw on for a while. I liked HP as a child, but at this point in my life, its engagement and entertainment value has long faded, and there are much better works that do the whole 'fantasy' thing better.

What's the actual impact beyond sheer popularity? They're not innovative in anyway. People say they ushered in a new era of kid's lit or something, but children's literature has always been popular, and HP brings nothing new.

>JKR's Harry Potter is the last piece of sincerity before postmodernism ravaged the medium
>DFW's writings were the last pieces of sincerity that people read as the beginning of post modernism
Pynchon, Barth, Barthleme, DeLillo, and many more were writing po-mo literature long before DFW and Rowling.

Harry Potter has changed the world in more tangible ways than, say, Ulysses. That doesn't necessarily make it good, it just makes it impactful.

>The books are fun and engaging to read, but unlike true literature, Harry Potter doesn't raise ideas and questions that one can gnaw on for a while.

If the purpose is being "fun and engaging", hasn't the series succeeded? JKR didn't want to write highbrow, she wanted to entertain her kids.

We have at least 5 threads a week on this. Learn to use the catalog. Lurk more.

There is no "genuine" lit crit on Harry Potter because they're fantasy novels written for children.

The most "genuine" discussions of Harry Potter leave its contents entirely behind and focus on sociological questions such as its impact on child literacy (which is not a settled question btw)

The books simply don't have enough artistic or philosophical merit to warrant the type of criticism you're trying to force.
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The thing I don't get is if guys like you are so interested in criticism then why not get into criticism proper and leave the children novels behind? Why try to forcibly connect two things that have nothing to do with each other?

Does Harry Potter really not have artistic merit?

I recently read the first novel in German to help with my language skills and I unironically leaked a few tears during the scene where Harry keeps sneaking out of his room at night to look at the mirror that shows him his parents.

This is true. However, in your op, you clearly made the claim that HP is a piece of literature, and that was what i was attempting to counter. HP is certainly impactful (but really only in the world of pop culture), but it really isn't literature; it's not particularly impactful to the mind or soul. And if it is impactful to children, it still doesn't bring much of anything new to mythology or folklore that hasn't already been explored.

I'm not OP, but yeah, I agree with your points.

It does, it's just that insecure pseuds don't want to admit it because they are worried they'll be outed as imbeciles. Harry Potter is similar to other classic children's works and fairy tales and the like. Rowling sucks, but no one remembers stuff like Robin Hood and Hanse and Gretel for the lucid prose.

Prediction: pseuds will rage at this post

How has it impacted the world???

Tell us why it has true artistic merit. Saying it's inspired by classic fairy tales isn't enough to make it high art.

>longevity
The literary dust hasn't settled.

I think Valley of the Dolls has a better shot of getting into the canon than Harry Potter.

Alice in Wonderland was written for children. But unlike Potter it has artistic merit.

Fuck off, Rowling, Veeky Forums hates you.

That's because most literary scholars are fags. And fags like that shitty book.

>What do you guys think?
I think you're ready to move on to this guy,

>books are extremely formulaic save for the last one, this really made the 5th and 6th books a drag to read
>horcruxes were a complete ass pull. This is the kind of thing that should be set up meet the start of a series, not at the end of the second to last book
>rowling in general uses deus ex machina bullshit in almost every book. Harry comming back to life and killing Voldemort with what is essentially fine print from the elder wands instruction book was lame as fuck
>prose is bad and repetitive
>Harry Ron and Hermoine follow the id ego super ego character archetypes used in almost every story with a trio of main characters. This isn't necessarily bad, but it doesn't warrant praise either
>Harry is a whinny Mary sue in the latter entries
>rowling bogs the story down with subplots that go nowhere in the latter 4 books (remember how riviting S.P.E.W. was?)
>generic good vs evil plot wit characters who are entirely black or white. Again, not necessarily bad, but also not worthy of praise
>a fucking "choose one" prophecy