JK Rowling, the woman who wrote Harry Potter, was a classics Major In College. The classic world can be found in the world in of Harry Potter. All the spells are recited in Latin. The spell to create a potronus is Expecto Patronum. This can be translated into I look for the patron. The books are filled characters that are given Latin names. Severus is a Latin word meaning severe, serious or grave. Minerva is named for a the Latin goddess of intelligence. Harry potter is filled with references to the classic world.This project will discuss how the Wizard war of Harry Potter can be compared to the Trojan war of the Iliad.
Both Wars lasted a exceptional amount of time. The Trojan war last 10 years. It took another 10 years for everyone to return home. This means the war lasted 20 years. The Iliad is the most recognized text dealing with the Trojan war and It only narrates a couple of months in the ninth year of the war. The Wizard war occurred in two separate time frames. The Fist wizard war began in 1970 and ended on October 31, 1981 when Harry inadvertently defeated Voldemort. The second Wizard War began on June 24, 1995 when Voldemort returned to power, and ended on May 2, 1998 when Harry finally killed Voldemort. The war lasted 28 years from the beginning of the first war to the end of the second war.
Both wars are fought over Pride. The Trojan War was fought because Paris stole Helen from Menelaus. The War was not about Helen, but the breaking of one of the essential rules on Grecian society, Xenia. Menelaus invited Paris into his home and treated him with unwavering hospitality. Paris then stole away Helen while Menelaus was sleeping. Then he refused to return her when Menelaus came to fetch her. The wizard War is fought over the pride of few wizards. Voldemort and his Death eaters believed that magic should be privileged to pure blood families. The blood status of a wizard was well kept in old wizard families. To have pure blood was a token of pride and the Death eaters started the war to cleanse the wizard world of what they considered dirty blood.
These wars are entirely works of fiction. The Trojan War is considers a myth by many scholars today. The Greeks believed the war was in their distant past. The tale marked the end of the great heroes. The Iliad and the Odyssey are a compilation of epic poems written over a large span of time. they began as an oral tradition and where finally down during the Hellenistic period. JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter over a ten-year period. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone was published on June 30, 1997 and the Deathly Hallows was published July 21, 2007. Both literary works can considered epics. They begin in the middle of the tale and tell the story in a ring formation.
Both wars are won by the aid of magical or supernatural forces. The Trojan War is wo
n with the help of the Gods. Apollo guides the arrow that kills Achilles. The gods all have their favorite heroes. The Heroes often gifted with aristeia, the power of a god. the gods gave them temporary strength to defeat their enemies. Athena gave this power to Diometes in the Iliad and to Odysseus in the Odyssey. The wizard war was won with the aid of the deathly hallows. This was a set of magical object that were given to three wizard by death. Harry was the Master of these items and therefor the master of death. He defeated Voldemort with the elder wand that was unbeatable.
As a classic major, I am interested how the ancient texts are relevant to today’s world. Harry Potter is a series that I have been interested in since I was ten years old. It is the epic battle between the powerful and the weak. It chronicles how the weak can over come the powerful if they band together. It tells the Story of the right and the wrong and lets you follow the journey. This is how story telling has been done for thousands of years. That is the relevance to the ancient text today. We can still learn from it. We can bury ourselves in the characters and follow them on their journey.
The Trojan War 
This is really interesting. Perhaps, the Harry Potter series is to us as the Iliad would have been to the Greeks. Both worlds exist close to ours, but not of them. Both depend on mythical, larger than life characters. They allow us to look into deeper societal issues, blood and bigotry or hierarchy and xenia for instance, while not facing those often difficult subjects outright. Still, they manage to entertain us at the same time.
That is what being a student of Classics is about, learning to connect things, to evaluate the world on a deeper level, while enjoying what you study as well. Who else gets to examine Harry Potter, Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Iliad and Odyssey?
(let’s hear it for mentioning Homer and Buffy in the same sentence!)
I think that Dlea9663 poses an interesting question (is Harry for us what Homer was…) if we adjust it for differences in culture, religion, boundaries like the sacred and secular, etc. But if there is one way in which the two cannot be compared it is in the level to which Homer (and Trojan War material in general) permeated ancient culture. In the modern world, entertainment (and especially moralizing or educative work) is far more fragmented–there is so much to choose from.
That said, HP is a wordlwide phenomenon. It will be interesting to see if our children (and their children) are still reading Rowling’s books…
I haven’t read much of the series (just the first book) but I can say Harry Potter definitely follows a mythological framework. The main character has a scar that identifies him (like Odysseus), comes from a special bloodline (like almost all heroes), must overcome many trials, and so on. It’s interesting how heroes throughout time and space share so many characteristics, I wonder if it is because of direct cultural influence, innate human psychological tendencies, or something else.