Harry Potter and the Undead Author
Self-interpretation from Rome to J.K. Rowling
“Sometimes dead is better.” So said Stephen King, and Anthony Morris passes it on as unsolicited advice to J.K. Rowling, in an article subtitled: “On Fanfiction, J.K. Rowling, and the Afterlife of Harry Potter.” He is not the only one to think that Rowling has become that most distasteful of figures: the author who refuses to die. J.K. Rowling Just Can’t Let Harry Potter Go, according to the New York Times. For the Atlantic, we’re now in the age of Harry Potter and the Never Ending Story. The New Republic dubbed a short story (purportedly by Rita Skeeter) posted on Rowling’s website a marketing scam. James Smyth believes that “J.K. Rowling is the world’s #1 Harry Potter fanfiction writer.” And Heather Schwedel at Slate proclaims that J.K. Rowling’s Twitter feed is slowly ruining everything I love about J.K. Rowling.
The fact that Rowling continues to live in the wizarding world — by sharing new details about it in interviews (as at Carnegie Hall in 2007, where she famously outed Dumbledore as gay), on her Twitter feed, on her website Pottermore, and in recent publications—is quite pesky to these critics, and reviews of her most recent endeavors reflect that. The play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, for example, which was billed by Rowling herself as the eighth installment of the series, “seems like fan fiction because it basically is.” Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is also “Harry Potter fan fiction.” To go by some critics, everything that J.K. Rowling has said publicly on the subject of Harry Potter since the publication of Deathly Hallows in 2007 is fanfiction. Why couldn’t she have just stayed dead and let Harry Potter be?
Before I get accused of inciting violence against a beloved children’s author, I should explain that I think these critics yearn for Rowling’s death only in the literary critical sense: like all of us, they were reared under the aegis of Wimsatt and Beardsley’s “intentional fallacy,” an idea to which Roland Barthes gave a more colorful metaphor: the “death of the author.” This literary critical strain holds that it is the text, not the author, that is the site of meaning; the text is a “well wrought urn,” as Wimsatt and Beardsley’s fellow New Critic Cleanth Brooks puts it, requiring no explanation from the artist. A well-behaved author, by modern literary critical standards, assumes that their writing speaks for itself, and doesn’t keep rising from the dead to clarify its meaning.
J.K. Rowling is not a well-behaved author, and her defiance of this ideal has frequently been noted using the language of modern literary criticism: “you don’t have to be a Barthesian grad student to chafe at Rowling’s impulse to clarify the words on the page,” says Esther Breger. Catherine Butler writes of Rowling’s defiance of the intentional fallacy, and Heather Schwedel, in the Slate piece mentioned above, pronounces that “there’s no easier way to puncture the illusion of Potter-ian world-building than the heavy-handed authorial ‘I’.”
I, Caroline, am not here to praise Rowling for her continued focus on Harry Potter nor to condemn her for it. Despite having been such a rabid Harry Potter fan as a teen that I moderated forums on the long-defunct site Fandom.com, my Potter-mania has lapsed in recent years. I haven’t read Cursed Child, or even seen Fantastic Beasts. Yet the criticism Rowling faces for her continued dabbling in the wizarding world interests me as a sign of how modern readers punish those who do not conform to the ideal of the dead author. What I find so interesting about this is that authors haven’t always had to stay dead. In fact, I suspect that if J.K. Rowling — spin-offs, prequels, Twitter feed and all — were transplanted back to ancient Rome, or to any period in which its literary tradition held sway, she might find a more welcoming audience.
Consider, for example, the criticism to which Rowling is most frequently subjected: that her recent works are fanfic (by which critics seem to mean that they are unoriginal pieces that rely on already established characters) and should not count as “canon” (the term used by writers of fanfic for their original source text). Talk of derivative work based off of an unchanging canon should put us in mind of of ancient literature, as Rachel Ahern Knudson has pointed out in another Eidolon piece:
many of the greatest works of ancient literature were doing something similar to modern fanfiction. What are the mythological digressions of Pindar, much of Greek tragedy, the Heroides of Ovid, even Vergil’s Aeneid if not “transformative work” (to use the technical term) based on Homer and the Epic Cycle, the ultimate “canon”?
Knudsen rightly points to the many ancient works that look back to Homer as a precursor to modern-day fanfic, but we could go even further: the Odyssey could easily be described as a fanfic of the Iliad, and even the Iliad assumes that we are already familiar with the characters and conflicts it lays out.
But of course, ancient literature would never be described as fanfic, because fanfic is a term only invoked for works that are deemed subliterary, and it is only our very different understanding of what authorship entails that makes modern transformative work seem subliterary. Ancient authors weren’t constrained by intellectual property and copyrights, concepts that discourage modern “serious” authors (“serious” usually still means white and male) from producing transformative literature. So while ancient transformative work, by co-opting earlier canonical classics, could itself become part of the canon, modern fanfic writers are largely marginal figures (the majority are women, minorities, and LGBT people) who base their works on a “canon” from which they are almost unilaterally excluded.
But I suspect that practical legal concerns aren’t the only reason that “serious” authors avoid transformative work like the plague. Far worse than legal liability is the fact that this sort of writing violates our idea of what a serious author is, an idea that is rooted in early nineteenth century Romantic ideals. The best art, for a Romantic, was entirely original, uninfluenced by earlier models, a flash of insight that welled up solely in the artist’s imagination: anything unoriginal was automatically second-rate. We still largely embrace this conception of what constitutes good art today, and it has had far-reaching effects on the values we assign to both ancient and modern literature. Indeed, the endurance of this Romantic view is implicit in the modern literary criticism I referred to earlier, which insists that we focus on the product of imagination rather than its producer.
The embodiment of this literary critical principle, Brooks’ “well wrought urn,” summons up images of classical antiquity, and rightfully so: the close readings Brooks employs in his book of this title evoke an interpretive approach that has long been the gold standard of classical scholarship. Close readings of ancient literature rely on the idea that the text is a work of pure genius, as perfect and timeless as a Greek vase or the colorless marble of the Parthenon. The Romantic underpinnings of this approach are made clear by the fact that while we subject both Latin and Greek literature to close readings, it is primarily Greek literature — much like it is primarily Greek art and architecture — on which we bestow the characterization of “genius.” Classical studies as a discipline began nearly in tandem with the Romantic period, and it is no coincidence that Latin literature has been systematically devalued in comparison to Greek for most of its disciplinary history. The Greeks deserve our close attention for their originality; the Romans were just their copyists.
But as we now know, the gleaming marble of the ancient world is a myth rooted in Eurocentric misconceptions, and claims of Greek originality participate in self-interested Athenian propaganda while ignoring the influence of Egypt and the Near East. In much the same way, Rowling challenges the image of the well wrought urn produced by an artist who politely plays dead. But she is not the first to have done so: it was challenged long ago by the very existence of Roman literature, which made a virtue out of unoriginality. And when we look at Roman literature and the tradition it inspired, we can see that authors have not always been forced to play dead for their works to be appreciated.
Roman authors willingly embraced the idea that Greek literature was more original than their own: Homer and Hesiod were thought to predate the founding of Rome itself, while the Roman literary tradition only dated to 240 BCE, when Livius Andronicus was commissioned by the Senate to write a play. But Roman distaste for modern day Greeks, the people they had successfully subjected, meant that they also believed that the trajectory of Greek literature had ended: they were now its inheritors, tasked with producing their own literature modeled on its classics.
Roman authors took pride in their role as Greece’s heirs, to the point of publicizing their status as imitators. Ennius started the trend when he claimed he was Homer reincarnated (fr. 13 Warmington), and it was taken up in earnest in the late Republican and Augustan period. Cicero, for example, not only wrote dialogues titled Republic and Laws, he noted in the latter how much like Plato he was to have written a Republic and Laws (On the Laws 1.15). Vergil opened the Aeneid with “arms and the man I sing,” signaling that his epic would combine the Iliad (arms) and Odyssey (the man); elsewhere he described himself as the Roman Theocritus (Eclogues 4.1, 6.1, 10.1) and Hesiod (Georgics 2.176). Propertius, who called himself the Roman Callimachus (Elegies 3.1.1), gave Vergil an even more exalted title: the Roman Homer (Elegies 2.34b.41–42). And Horace — who claimed to be the Roman Alcaeus (Odes 1.32) and Archilochus (Epistles 1.19.23–25)— opened his Odes with the hope that he would join the Greek canon of nine lyric poets (1.1.35–36) before closing the third book with the confident assertion that he had succeeded: his poetry had now earned him immortality as well (3.30).
Horace’s boast indicates one of the primary attractions for Romans of adapting Greek literature. Romans did not imitate Greek literature at random; they imitated the works that had stood the test of time to become classics. Adapting these texts was a way for Roman authors to create a parallel set of classics, and a good author even had reason to hope that his work would achieve the status of a classic within his own lifetime, assuring him of his immortality. This did, in fact, actually happen to Cicero and Vergil, who were both studied by Roman students while still alive. But in order to accomplish this goal, Roman authors had to essentially do what J.K. Rowling now does with her Twitter feed: they had to return to haunt their own works even after their publication.
Cicero — the man who once proclaimed how lucky Rome was to have been reborn under his leadership — can, by his lack of subtlety, serve as a useful example of the self-promotion that Roman authors engaged in. Because Cicero was a politician first and foremost, the original reason he obsessed over the public’s perception of himself was because, like all politicians, he wanted to win more votes — and he succeeded. Although he was a provincial nobody, he was elected to the highest Roman office, the consulship, without the usual advantages like famous ancestors and a built-in network of money and allies. His success stemmed from the one advantage he had over most other politicians: a way with words. He built a network of allies through his skills as a legal advocate and made his name as famous as his more pedigreed political opponents through strategic publication of his speeches and other works of writing. And one of his favorite themes in these texts was himself: as one ancient critic of his put it, he praised himself “not without reason, but without end” (Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 5.1). Publishing self-aggrandizing texts helped Cicero keep his name and his virtuous actions well-publicized.
The most infamous example of Cicero’s self-aggrandizement is his three book poem, On His (Own) Consulship, in which he justified his handling of the Catilinarian conspiracy that arose during his tenure as consul. The title of the poem is a matter of some dispute: we aren’t sure whether it was On His Consulship (with Cicero serving as the author and main character and someone else narrating), or On His Own Consulship (with Cicero serving as the author, main character, AND narrator). Whoever told the story, Cicero was clearly at its center: he attends two separate councils of the gods and is instructed by a variety of different Muses. (To put it in fanfic terms, On His Consulship is the ultimate Mary Sue fic, one that doesn’t even pretend it’s about anything but making the author look good.)
While this poem no longer survives — and it was immediately, mercilessly attacked by Cicero’s political enemies — there are some indications that it was popular when it was first published. And it is notable that even today, the events that transpired during Cicero’s consulship are still largely told from Cicero’s perspective: the poem may not still exist, but the speeches Cicero delivered against Catiline do, and they are still read by nearly every Latin student at some point in their career. By so brazenly meddling in public perceptions of the conspiracy, Cicero made it difficult to ignore his point of view.
On His Consulship may have been the first time that Cicero meddled so openly with his public image, but it was not the last. In fact, in a move worthy of J.K. Rowling herself, he eventually became intent upon clarifying the details not just of his political exploits, but of his publications, too. In three treatises written towards the end of his life (Orator, On the Nature of the Gods, and On Divination), he actually quotes from and comments on texts written earlier in his career: his speeches in Orator, his translation of Aratus’ Phaenomena in On the Nature of the Gods, and several of his poetic works in On Divination. In doing so, he made it clear that he had no concept of the “well wrought urn”: in Cicero’s mind, he was free to guide the interpretation of his earlier works as he pleased. Indeed, Cicero was the ultimate undead author, incessantly promoting and curating his image, and generally doing everything a modern literary critic would tell us an author is not supposed to do.
And yet these techniques, far from condemning him to obscurity, instead seemingly helped propel Cicero’s success. He is one of the most famous classical authors, with few rivals when it comes to popularity in schools or sheer breadth of surviving texts. Furthermore, his example inspired Augustan authors like Vergil, Horace, and Propertius, who followed his lead in openly expressing their desires for immortality as classics in their own right and guiding the interpretation of their works. Like Cicero they demanded a certain kind of reception, and like Cicero they have received it. It is not an accident that we refer to this period of Latin literature as a “Golden Age”: we do so in large part because these authors told us, over and over again, that this was Latin literature’s Golden Age.
The pride these Roman authors took in adapting another culture’s literature may be out of fashion these days, but ever since they made adaptation a defining part of their literary culture there have been those who have recognized the vitality and validity of so-called “unoriginal” works. Literature and literary theory in late antiquity and the Middle Ages (which were both shaped by the Roman tradition) in particular made room for appreciating the skill that went into adaptations, compilations, and other so-called derivative works. In the prologue to his Commentary on the Sentences, for example, the philosopher and theologian St. Bonaventure argues that the term “author” is an accurate description of those who perform four different activities: the scribe who copies texts, the compiler who brings various texts together, the commentator whose text is based on another, and finally the author who writes self-standing works. While the highest level of activity is reserved for the author, it is notable that Bonaventure considers the other levels of textual activity authorial in their own right. Furthermore, his proposition makes a great deal of sense: scribes, compilers, and commentators also use writing to make valuable contributions to the production and preservation of knowledge.
But Roman attitudes towards authorship have not just served as examples for literary criticism that makes a virtue of unoriginality. Their penchant for guiding the reception of their works has long had its adherents among authors, too. Dante’s Letter to Cangrande, an introduction to and allegorical interpretation of his Divina Commedia, is one notable case. But the tactic has also found more recent popularity: Nabokov, for example, wrote his own set of endnotes to his masterpiece Ada under the nom de plume “Vivian Darkbloom,” an anagram of his own name (in true Mary Sue fashion, he also cameos in Lolita under this name). T.S. Eliot likewise provided notes for one of his works, The Waste Land. More recently, J.K. Rowling has found herself in the company of several other authors and film-makers who continue to comment upon and expand their universes.
Rowling’s widespread unpopularity — and the continued preference today for Greek over Latin literature — suggests these practices still make some modern readers uneasy. Perhaps it is because they remind us that claims of the death of the author have been greatly exaggerated. The meddling of J.K. Rowling and her ilk is a sign that authors really do exist, and that many of them can’t resist telling us how we should interpret their masterpieces. But the continued endurance of Roman literature suggests that this stance will always have adherents in addition to detractors. If we like a piece of art well enough to return to it over and over again, as has been the case with Roman literature — and up till now, at least, has also been the case with the Harry Potter books — in the long run we may come to sympathize with an author who finds herself compelled to do the same thing.
Caroline Bishop is an assistant professor of classics at Texas Tech University. Though she’d hoped for Ravenclaw, she is a proud and unapologetic Slytherin. She can tell you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the significance of the “gleam of triumph” in Dumbledore’s eye at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
