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The year 2017 marked the 20th anniversary of the publication of the first novel of the Harry Potter series. On that occasion, a number of authors and critics commented on the phenomenon, trying to figure out why the Harry Potter series gained such praise and popularity among readers and critics alike. Julia Eccleshare, Director of the Hay Children’s Festival, for instance, attributed the popularity of the series to “the diverse and inventive cast of characters”, as well as “the originality of everything about Hogwarts”. At the same time, however, she noted that “any experienced reader might have felt that they had read such a story before”. Indeed, this feeling that the Harry Potter novels are an amalgamation of modern themes and old story-telling has not escaped the attention of scholars. In their discussion of heroism in Harry Potter, Katrin Berndt and Lena Steveker argue that the novels “rely on established generic, moral and popular codes to develop a new and genuine mode of expressing what a globalized world has applauded to be ethically exemplary models worth aspiring to”. Similarly, in his Christian reading of the books, John Granger maintains that “[t]he Harry Potter novels […] touch our hearts because they contain themes, imagery, and engaging stories that echo the Great Story we are wired to receive and respond to”. Going back even to the Graeco-Roman era, Richard A. Spencer observes that Rowling “borrows from and applies ancient themes, terms and situations to modern times”, providing “variation on the originals, while infusing the present with the uniqueness of the past”. Perhaps the “whole new place to play in”, which, according to Eccleshare, Rowling has given her readers, is not as new as the readers might be led to believe. Employing myth and archetypal criticism, this presentation will argue that the reason why the Harry Potter series resonates with such a wide reading audience lies in Rowling’s effective implementation of narrative and cultural patterns that make her stories something that might be called a “meta-myth” (a term used by Jordan B. Peterson) or a “basic plot” (Christopher Booker's term) that the readers easily recognise and respond to. Through Rowling’s work with archetypal and mythical elements, the story of the Boy Who Lived can easily be considered a story we have, in one form or another, always heard.
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