Voldemort as an Anti-Philosopher (Plato) and as the Whole (Plutarch) E-Book

George Cebadal

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 28

Beschreibung

J. K. Rowling has studied Classics (/Greek and Roman Studies) and this is a short essay on two ancient motifs of "Harry Potter": The motif of the anti-philosopher - referring to Plato's "Phaedo" (the body-loving soul and the fear of death) - and the motif of the whole - referring to Plutarch's "On the Soul" -, that are also two well-known motifs in the Freemasonry of Albert Pike (called Plato "the greatest of human Revealers") and Albert Mackey (treats Plutarch's text as "too interesting to Freemasons to be omitted"). Note that the author is a non-native English speaker and the priority of the essay is the conveying of ideas - not proper English.

Leseprobe

Immortality.

Dread’st thou the aspect of Death? Thou wishest to live on for ever? Live in the Whole, and when long thou shalt have gone, ’twill remain!

FRIEDRICH SCHILLER

(author of Ode to Joy)

Janus, Roman god of transitions, duality, beginnings and endings;

usually depicted as having two faces, one young and the other elderly (= being young and old at the same time), one facing forwards and the other facing backwards (= looking to the future and the past at the same time); it is often even considered, that Janus is the god of all beginnings, the oldest of all gods and that a priest of Janus was the first priest of the Roman priesthood (rex sacrorum)

You think this way of Writing[referring to fables]agreeable and diverting: and indeed having nothing of greater Importance to mind, I love to amuse myself in such like Trifles. But yet after all, if you examine these Pieces with a little Attention, how many useful Lessons will you find couch’d under them? Things are not always what they seem to be; the first Appearance deceives many, and ‘tis but seldom that the Mind can reach, what the masterly Skill of an Author had conceal’d in some choice Corner of his Work.

PHAEDRUS

(fabulist, about 50 A.D.)

Voldemort (alias Tom Riddle) uses the words of the goddess Isis to reveal himself to Harry Potter in the final fight of the second book:

‘Voldemort,’ said Riddle softly, ‘is my past, present and future, Harry Potter ...’1

These words are a reference to Plutarch’s account of a statue of Isis in Sais, that bore the inscription:

I am all that has been [= past], and is [= present], and shall be [= future], and my robe no mortal has yet uncovered.2

This once famous3 self-description of Isis is an allegory for the one being, that is all or the whole. And this usage of an allegory for the whole has a method in “Harry Potter”, which one can recognize in the final fight of the first book.

There Voldemort reveals himself to Harry as a second face at the back of Professor Quirrell’s head.4 This double-faced form of appearance reminds of the Roman god Janus, who has also two faces at the same position, a younger face and an older face, and by which he looks forward and backwards simultaneously. Thus, Janus is symbolising the beginning and the end – Janus is the god of both and also an allegory for the one being, that is the whole. Besides, this is not unlike to the self-description of the Christian god in the “Revelation to John”:

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.5

Furthermore, the method or motif of the whole illustrates its connections in Rowling’s stage play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”. There Voldemort’s daughter, who has the suggestive name Delphi, reveals her nature to the son of Harry by using the words:

I am the new past. [...] I am the new future. [...] I am the answer this world has been looking for.6

By the way, Plutarch was a priest of Delphi and according to him Dionysus has no less to do with Delphi than Apollo;7