Harry Keeps Pushing Boundaries

Harry Potter's latest debate is an interesting one in the world of literary criticism. Last week, J.K. Rowling confirmed that Albus Dumbledore is gay. Now, here's the interesting part for me: this fact, ultimately, is not in the seven Harry Potter books (but will now make it into the eventual Encyclopedia, I'm sure), and is also not important to the books. As the NY Times critic writes, "Dumbledore’s supposed gayness is ultimately as unimportant as Ron’s shabby clothes." (The NY Times writes whole articles on fictional characters? Pretty important.)

So, if Dumbledore's sexuality is unimportant to the books and yet, post-writing, the author says that he is gay, literary criticism is in a bit of a conundrum. Criticism based on authorial intent--interpreting the story by what the author intends to say--will now go back and reinterpret all the novels with this new piece of information. Rowling has wisely managed to stay out of much of her novels' interpretations until now, just dropping well-phrased hints now and then before the release of a new book. Her readers have been able to take whatever they want to the text, which is another school of literary criticism: reader response. In this method of interpretation, the books mean whatever the reader interprets it to mean. So, if the reader puts all the clues together, realizes that Dumbledore's never had a significant other, then the reader can interpret that however he/she wishes.

There are several other schools of interpretation, but only one that I will mention here: structuralism. This method looks at the text alone--authorial intent or reader response aside--the critic looks at the text and derives meaning from it alone. Meaning is constructed from the clues in the text. Structuralism operates under the assumption that the text and the author are not inseparable and that the text can often have meaning that the author does not mean it to have.

When I come to a text, I usually pay attention to all three of these schools of thought. I pay attention to my reaction to a text, but usually separate it from my ultimate artistic critique of the text. I pay attention to the author's comments about the text, and find them interesting--but if I see something totally different than the author intended, that's alright as well. When I write essays, I use dominant structuralist methods, adding nuances from authorial intent or my response.

So, until now, my readings of Harry Potter have been mostly structuralist. I've always wondered where Rowling would take the novels in the end, and now that they are finished, her intent no longer matters. The seven novels, as they stand together on the shelf, are a complete, huge story. For her to "come out" with a comment like this, post-writing, is an interesting move of rhetorical (and political?) strategy. Does this alter structuralist readings of the text? Should it? Can we now discuss the Harry Potter novels without Dumbledore's sexuality? Or is it now an important element of the text? Pure structuralism would say that this new information is unimportant and unfounded. Yet, this new authorial information has made such a splash that part of me thinks I'll have to stretch my structuralist boundaries to fit it in... It makes me wonder if these books will continue to construct their own meaning outside of the text for awhile yet. Rowling has said that she will eventually write an encyclopedia, which will give further background on several characters and situations. I wonder how many new meanings will be in store for her readers there...