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THE LAKE AND THE SHED: A TRADITIONALIST READING OF J. K. ROWLING’S WORK / JOHN GRANGER

Swansea University Author: JOHN GRANGER

  • E-Thesis - restricted access under embargo until: 23rd March 2025

DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.63233

Abstract

Key figures of Western literature who have portrayed the soul’s struggle to perfection in spirit in allegorical depiction and exteriorized characters include Plato, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, the Metaphysical Poets, William Blake, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and th...

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Published: Swansea, Wales, UK 2023
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Doctoral
Degree name: Ph.D
Supervisor: Preece, Julian E. and Hollrah, Matthew.
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa63233
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first_indexed 2023-04-27T09:52:30Z
last_indexed 2023-04-27T09:52:30Z
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spelling v2 63233 2023-04-24 THE LAKE AND THE SHED: A TRADITIONALIST READING OF J. K. ROWLING’S WORK 67277be08cbb83169e0be88afece2af9 JOHN GRANGER JOHN GRANGER true false 2023-04-24 Key figures of Western literature who have portrayed the soul’s struggle to perfection in spirit in allegorical depiction and exteriorized characters include Plato, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, the Metaphysical Poets, William Blake, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the Oxford Inklings. This anagogical artistry or psychomachia is central as well to J. K. Rowling’s novels and screenplays and grasping it is essential to an assessment of her achievements as a writer.In this thesis, I position Rowling as a covert and hermetic artist whose aim is the defamiliarization, even the transformation of her readers from a profane worldview to some awareness of the sacred within and around them. In doing so, I contribute the first in-depth discussion of Rowling’s neo-mythological and literary alchemy, going beyond the author’s explicit asides with respect to her intentions and artistry that, to date, have not been more than acknowledged by Rowling scholars; my argument references the uncollected Rowling interview material of the last twenty-five years as well as her published fiction and public statements.The thesis is structured in two parts. The first includes reviews of Rowling’s biography and bibliography of favorite writers respectively to clarify her intention as a writer; the second part is readings of her fiction, with special focus on Deathly Hallows (2007), Troubled Blood (2020) and The Christmas Pig (2021) as psychomachian allegories as such and then as alchemical dramas in which the soul’s transformation is depicted in hermetic symbolism and sequences. The thesis concludes with suggestions for further studies consequent to Rowling’s success as a covert writer of psycho-spiritual allegory especially with respect to her chiastic structural artistry. E-Thesis Swansea, Wales, UK J. K. Rowling 28 3 2023 2023-03-28 10.23889/SUthesis.63233 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Preece, Julian E. and Hollrah, Matthew. Doctoral Ph.D 2023-09-28T14:28:24.4677839 2023-04-24T15:20:14.5411565 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing JOHN GRANGER 1 Under embargo Under embargo 2023-04-27T10:51:18.7259863 Output 1798257 application/pdf E-Thesis - restricted access true 2025-03-23T00:00:00.0000000 Copyright: The Author, John Granger, 2023. Distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). true eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
title THE LAKE AND THE SHED: A TRADITIONALIST READING OF J. K. ROWLING’S WORK
spellingShingle THE LAKE AND THE SHED: A TRADITIONALIST READING OF J. K. ROWLING’S WORK
JOHN GRANGER
title_short THE LAKE AND THE SHED: A TRADITIONALIST READING OF J. K. ROWLING’S WORK
title_full THE LAKE AND THE SHED: A TRADITIONALIST READING OF J. K. ROWLING’S WORK
title_fullStr THE LAKE AND THE SHED: A TRADITIONALIST READING OF J. K. ROWLING’S WORK
title_full_unstemmed THE LAKE AND THE SHED: A TRADITIONALIST READING OF J. K. ROWLING’S WORK
title_sort THE LAKE AND THE SHED: A TRADITIONALIST READING OF J. K. ROWLING’S WORK
author_id_str_mv 67277be08cbb83169e0be88afece2af9
author_id_fullname_str_mv 67277be08cbb83169e0be88afece2af9_***_JOHN GRANGER
author JOHN GRANGER
author2 JOHN GRANGER
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institution Swansea University
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hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing
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description Key figures of Western literature who have portrayed the soul’s struggle to perfection in spirit in allegorical depiction and exteriorized characters include Plato, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, the Metaphysical Poets, William Blake, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the Oxford Inklings. This anagogical artistry or psychomachia is central as well to J. K. Rowling’s novels and screenplays and grasping it is essential to an assessment of her achievements as a writer.In this thesis, I position Rowling as a covert and hermetic artist whose aim is the defamiliarization, even the transformation of her readers from a profane worldview to some awareness of the sacred within and around them. In doing so, I contribute the first in-depth discussion of Rowling’s neo-mythological and literary alchemy, going beyond the author’s explicit asides with respect to her intentions and artistry that, to date, have not been more than acknowledged by Rowling scholars; my argument references the uncollected Rowling interview material of the last twenty-five years as well as her published fiction and public statements.The thesis is structured in two parts. The first includes reviews of Rowling’s biography and bibliography of favorite writers respectively to clarify her intention as a writer; the second part is readings of her fiction, with special focus on Deathly Hallows (2007), Troubled Blood (2020) and The Christmas Pig (2021) as psychomachian allegories as such and then as alchemical dramas in which the soul’s transformation is depicted in hermetic symbolism and sequences. The thesis concludes with suggestions for further studies consequent to Rowling’s success as a covert writer of psycho-spiritual allegory especially with respect to her chiastic structural artistry.
published_date 2023-03-28T14:28:25Z
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