Harry — Is that Potter, Percy or Plantagenet?

A Note on Shakespeare's 1 Henry IV in the Transitional Novels of J. K. Rowling

Authors

Kathryn Jacobs Texas A&M, Commerce

Abstract

Ever since Rowling began writing, scholars have discussed her novels as new manifestations of an old genre, the British schoolboy book. And this is largely true of the first three Harry Potter books. Beginning with Goblet of Fire (2000), however, Rowling largely abandons these conventions, and adopts a new model: Shakespeare's multi-play historical epic. Writing now for a general audience, she introduces for the first time a politically and socially complex world that simply does not fit into the alternating cycle of boarding school and vacation. Two plays in particular changed the way Rowling saw her own epic: Shakespeare's Richard III and that pivotal play of Shakespeare's Henriad, 1 Henry IV.

Author Biography

Kathryn Jacobs, Texas A&M, Commerce

Kathryn Jacobs wrote a dissertation on Shakespeare at Harvard University and is now professor at Texas A&M - Commerce. One book (Marriage Contracts from Chaucer to the Renaissance Stage) was published by the University Press of Florida in 2001, another (on Chaucer's influence on Shakespeare) is nearing completion. She has also published numerous poems and articles, the latter in Chaucer Review, Medievalia, Early Modern Literary Studies, Midwest Quarterly, and others.