Harry Potter and The Castle o f Otranto'. J. K. Rowling,
Hogwarts, and the Eighteenth-Century Gothic Novel
J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (1997-2007) has been much
discussed since its explosion on the world stage. Although critics such as
Harold Bloom have dismissed it as “heavy on cliche” and further posited
that the series “makes no demands upon its readers” (Bloom), its sales
have, nonetheless, made it an international phenomenon. The series has
spawned eight films, tens of millions in book sales, t-shirts, close to half
a million fan fiction stories, and countless other products and spinoffs.
Yet it has not spawned the same kind of serious inquiry from the
academy that it has garnered from popular culture. Those within
academia who have focused on the series have often pointed—and
rightly so—to the enormous number of children, young adults and adults
who have voraciously devoured the series, and the ways in which it has
introduced a new generation to reading. From a literary perspective,
much of the criticism has focused on a wide variety of literary links to
other traditions, tales and novels.' Gregory Pepetone posits that much of
the series is a political allegory for the modem world. David K. Steege
has argued convincingly that the series draws on the rich tradition of
British school novels, particularly Tom Brown’s School Days, while
Alessandra Petrina contends that the series draws heavily, especially in
its settings, from Arthurian legend. Yet despite these readings, the
academic community has yet to focus on the debt the series holds to the
British Gothic novels of the late eighteenth century. Susanne Gmss,
focusing on Harry Potter and the Order o f the Phoenix both as novel and
film adaptation, points out many key Gothic elements found in the Potter
series and argues that the Gothic is a “persistent feature” throughout the
series and becomes “more pronounced” as the series goes on (40).
Gregory Pepetone calls the series a “flagrantly gothic tale” (182) and
John Granger, in Harry Potter’s Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the
Hogwarts Adventures, attempts to tease out some of the Gothic elements
of the series. Neither of their readings are particularly interested in
examining the eighteenth-century Gothic roots of Hogwarts. Instead,
their readings prefer to focus on nineteenth-century British and American
Gothic aspects of the series. Although the Potter series certainly borrows
some of its elements from nineteenth-century Gothic, it is my contention
that the series is far more indebted to the British Gothic of the late
eighteenth century and, more specifically, indebted to the castles of those