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Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast

Rowling Studies The Hogwarts Professor Podcast

Auteur(s): John Granger
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 The Artistry and Meaning of J. K. Rowling and Other Greats

hogwartsprofessor.substack.comJohn Granger Art
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  • Talking About 'A Rowling Reading of Aurora Leigh'

    Talking About 'A Rowling Reading of Aurora Leigh'
    Dec 3 2025
    John Granger in September 2022, weeks after the publication of Ink Black Heart, tackled the tangle of 108 poetic epigraphs in Strike 6 from twenty-two Anglo-American Victorian women poets in search of a common theme, of a prevalent meaning, or, the Holy Grail, a work among the many works that acted to Heart as Rosmersholm did to Lethal White and Faerie Queene did to Troubled Blood. This effort involved listing the poets, the epigraphs (citing poems by each woman), and, without reading each poem, noting simply what each brief excerpt included. You can read the results of those surveys at ‘Ink Black Heart: Intro to Epigraphs 101.’The anticipated result of those tabulations was that the poetic epigraphs in Heart, in tandem with the cardiac Part headings from Grey’s Anatomy, were consistently about the heart as spiritual faculty rather than bodily pump. The surprise finding was that 13% of the epigraphs were from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh. John speculated in conclusion that it was the heart of Rowling’s sixth Strike-Ellacott novel:Again, this is not the place to write at any length about the relevance of ‘Aurora Leigh’ as a mirroring text within Ink Black Heart. Like you, I look forward to Beatrice Groves’ exegesis to complement her Cuckoo’s Calling work with Rossetti’s ‘Dirge’ and Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses.’ The two important things to note here are only that ‘Aurora Leigh’ is the poem most deployed in Strike6 epigraphs and that it is a melange of “Biblical and classical history and mythology, as well as modern novels.” That it would work as something of a template or touchstone for Ink Black Heart, a novel with mythological and hermetic backdrops and archetypal symbols used to reinvent the depth and range of the most modern of genres, the murder mystery, as psychomachian allegory, seems almost a no-brainer. If you can only read one book or poem to buttress your understanding of Strike6, it has to be Durkheim’s Suicide, Evola’s Ride the Tiger, or Browning’s ‘Aurora Leigh,’ and I think the epic poem is your best bet.When Rowling agreed to a live interview with Serious Strikers on Twitter the month after Ink Black Heart’s publication, one hosted by the Barmy Army, John listed the first question he would ask her to be about the importance if any of Aurora Leigh for understanding Strike 6: “Is Barret Browning’s Aurora Leigh the backdrop story to Ink Black Heart the way Rosmersholm and Faerie Queen were to the fourth and fifth Strike mysteries?”Nick Jeffery included this question in a veritable barrage of questions he launched during the Barmy Army interview, and, incredibly, Rowling responded:John concluded in his write up of the Barmy Army interview:If I get “all credit” for the spotting, I must take the blame as well for misspelling Browning’s name and for Nick’s saying there were thirteen rather than fourteen Leigh epigraphs. All credit to @gbjeffen for succeeding in getting Rowling to answer a question, something I have not succeeding in doing in more than two decades of reading her work and writing about its artistry and meaning. Look for the seven point Ink Black Heart: Aurora Leigh post in the coming week.John, however, never wrote up that '“seven point Ink Black Heart Aurora Leigh post” and his expectation of a Beatrice Groves exegesis also never materialized. That project was delayed until Nick Jeffery, in his years long effort to read everything Rowling has admitted to reading and liking (see this list of those books, a list that predates the 2022 revelations in re Aurora Leigh), arrived at the 1856 epic novel in blank verse. Last week Nick wrote up his findings here as ‘A Rowling Reading of Aurora Leigh: The Influence of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh on J.K. Rowling.’John and Nick put Hallmarked Man aside, consequently, in this week’s conversation to talk about this poem, Nick’s essay, and the place of this work in Fourth Generation Rowling Studies. Enjoy!Next week they’ll chart Part Three of Hallmarked Man, discuss the astrological symbols and meaning embedded in Strike 8’s names and plot points, and review with a Generation Hex special guest the long anticipated full-cast audio book of Harry Potter. and the Philosopher’s Stone. Stay tuned — and please join the Paid Subscribers club to keep the HogPro lights on and restore heat and power to John’s home! Many thanks to all subscribers around the world with a special shout-out this week to the six listeners in Norway: Tussen Takk!The Ten Questions and Promised Links:Little Women and Harry Potter: Jo Rowling is Jo March The Seven Points of CorrespondenceYou see, I was a plain — and that is relevant! you know that is relevant, that isn’t a trivial thing, especially when you’re a kid — I was a very plain, bookish, freckly, bright, little girl. I was a massive book worm and I spent a significant part of my reading looking for people like...
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    1 h et 18 min
  • Jonny Rokeby was both Cormoran and Charlotte's Father: The Incest Twist Rowling Has Hidden Inside the Strike Series

    Jonny Rokeby was both Cormoran and Charlotte's Father: The Incest Twist Rowling Has Hidden Inside the Strike Series
    Nov 22 2025
    The Hogwarts Professor comment threads have been jumping so Nick Jeffery and John Granger decided to dedicate a conversation to a review of the Greatest Hits in the last week (to do a complete review yourself, click on ‘Activity’ in the left margin of the Hogwarts Professor Substack home page).After their reviewing the remarkably global and growing audience of Rowling Readers — 36 countries, 46 states! — and tracking The Presence’s location — her yacht seems to be in Fiji but she is touring Levesden Studios? — Nick and John read out fifteen comment subjects and discuss the merits, deficiencies, and promise of each.The lede story is the theory shared by Jaclyn Hayes that Cormoran Strike and the late Charlotte Campbell were half-siblings with Jonny Rokeby in common as their absentee father. From her notes: I think Charlotte was blackmailed (via threat of exposing the relatedness btw her and Cormoran) into marrying Jago to provide him a male heir. Perhaps their relatedness is even an open secret in Charlotte’s family, similar to the “secret” relatedness of Decima and Rupert in THM (another parallel). Charlotte was forbidden from telling Cormoran about the blackmail, but since she’s conniving and obsessed with him, she uses their unexpected encounter at the Paralympics gala to drop hints about her predicament, hoping he’ll solve the mystery and save her or take her back once she’s fulfilled the terms of her marriage/birth agreement with Jago. She then orchestrates another encounter with Cormoran to drop more hints-- this time at Franco’s, which she knows will trigger the memory of her father’s outrage at seeing her and Cormoran dating again. She hopes Cormoran will realize her father was angry because he knew they were related, not simply because he thinks Cormoran wasn’t good enough for her. She then tells Coromoran things would be different if he’d taken the job her father offered him (calling to mind the job Tara gives Rupert to keep him quiet in THM), and says she found out she was pregnant at Tara’s house and later “lost” (not aborted) the baby. Read the whole thing. Ed Shardlow’s response, in which he points out that the hallmark given to silver and DNA testing of human beings have a lot in common, and Tamspells and Jaclyn Hayes discussion of Strike’s dreams in previous books give the Strike:Charlotte::Rupert:Decima theory some heft. Cheryl Rose Orrocks asked for help with research she is doing on a possible divine marker, mythologically divine at least, being placed in each book at the appearance of that novel’s killer. The only holes in her theory at the time Nick and John recorded their conversation were Troubled Blood and Running Grave — and Catherine has since posted a neat solution for Strike 5. Check that out and please share the missing god or goddess from Running Grave!Nick and John also review and discuss:* Ed Shardlow’s idea that the characters creating narratives inside Rowling-Galbraith stories are perhaps best understood as creating their stories as Rowling writes hers, i.e., inspired by Lake material and crafted with the tools in their Sheds;* Vicky’s thank you to Dr Fimi for the Ursula Le Guin quotation;* Ed Shardlow’s ‘RL Mystery’ with back-up from Tamspells and J. S. Maleksen;* Cheryl Rose Orrocks’ YouTube notes about the Dirty Bomb Theory conversation (and just how wrong John is about Carmen the opera and Carmen Ellacott); and* Answers to listener requests for more information — all of which can be found in the Links section below!In the week to come, John pledges to post his Hallmarked Man Names exegesis, Nick is working on his review of Aurora Leigh, the supposed template of Ink Black Heart (and the only book ever confirmed by Rowling as such), they will record their Part Two ring charting this weekend, and John is reorganizing his 2017 seven week online course — Wizard Reading Formula — for which class Paid Subscribers will get a greater than 50% discount.John and Nick thank everyone listening and especially those active on the comment threads and taking part in the Hallmarked Man Ring Reading Workshop!Links to Subjects Discussed in the Conversation Above:Cheryl Rose Orrocks: Can you let me know the title and author of the book about Gothic elements?The one John used for Harry Potter’s Bookshelf was Patterns of fear in the Gothic novel, 1790-1830 by Ann Tracy, now only ‘in print’ via a Kindle version.John read from his much longer Harry Meets Hamlet and Scrooge: Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Adventures as the Gateway to English Literature in the conversation above, in which the list of subjects is spelled out (e.g., the castle, supernatural atmosphere, horror, isolation, subterranean passages, fragmentation and reunion, prophecy, ancestral curse, tainted blood, bond of blood, graveyard, corpses, Decay of Aristocratic Privilege, Rise of Bourgeoisie, forest, memories, dreams, found book, doppelgangers, scar or ...
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    1 h et 46 min
  • Reading Rowling as Myth Maker and Myth Re-Writer: A Conversation with Dr Dimitra Fimi

    Reading Rowling as Myth Maker and Myth Re-Writer: A Conversation with Dr Dimitra Fimi
    Nov 18 2025
    Dimitra Fimi is Professor of Fantasy and Children’s Literature at the University of Glasgow and Co-Director of the Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic. Her Tolkien, Race and Cultural History won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies and she co-edited the critical edition of A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages which won the Tolkien Society Award for Best Book. Her Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies. Other work includes co-editing Sub-creating Arda: World-building in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Work, its Precursors and its Legacies and Imagining the Celtic Past in Modern Fantasy. She has contributed articles for the TLS and The Conversation, and has appeared on numerous radio and TV programs.When the rightly famous and beloved ‘The Great Courses’ series decided to offer a Lord of the Rings entry for their catalog of the very best in scholarship for adult-learners, they asked Dimitra Fimi to create ‘The World of J. R. R. Tolkien,’ one of their most popular courses and one you can enjoy in an Audible edition.Links Promised in Conversation:A Kind of Elvish Craft: The Dimitra Fimi Substack Site* Miniature Books in Children’s Fantasy* Parabasis: A Tribute to Dionysis Stavvopoulos* On Tolkien’s Letter 131 (4): “Romance” vs. ScienceDimitra Fimi articles at ‘The Conversation’* After 150 years, we still haven’t solved the puzzle of Alice in Wonderland (2015)Kanreki Conversations about Rowling-Galbraith ‘Golden Threads’* Pregnancy Traps in the Works of Rowling-Galbraith* Golden Threads in Rowling-Galbraith (1)* Golden Threads in Rowling-Galbraith (2)* ‘The Lost Child’ Golden Thread* Alternative Explanations of ‘The Lost Child’ Golden Thread* The Induced Abortion Hypothesis* The July 2025 Kanreki IndexOur Ten Questions for Dr Fimi:1. How does a woman born and raised on the Greek island of Salamis wind up in Cardiff studying Celtic Mythology?2. You’re a Tolkien scholar and expert in fantasy and Children’s literature. Tolkienistas are legend for looking down their Ent noses at Harry Potter, though there are important exceptions to that rule (the late Stratford Caldecott, his wife Leonie, Amy H. Sturgis, others). How did you meet the Boy Who Lived and what were your first impressions of Rowling as author?3. You have a lot in common with Rowling, no? Tolkien devotee, serious student of mythology, and a wonderful appreciation of the magic of story, especially magical stories for children. The Tolkien influence on Rowling is well documented though she has tried to belittle it, but her use of myths as templates for her stories is less well known but at least as important. What do you make of her admittedly “shameless” borrowing from folk tales and myths?4. I guess this is a segue to the Cormoran Strike books which are awash in myths -- Leda and the Swan, Castor and Pollux, Cupid and Psyche, Artemis and Tisiphone... Am I missing any?5. You’ve seen Rowling’s recent confirmation of the Cupid and Psyche myth in her tweeted painting of ‘Psyche Ascendant.’ That suggests we’ll see the happy ending of the myth in Strikes 9 and 10. Or does it? What did you see of that myth specifically in Hallmarked Man?6. Running Grave has another embedded text, not a myth per se, one that makes sense in light of Rowling’s love of everything the Bronte sisters wrote. Tell us what made you think of Jane Eyre as you were reading Strike 7.7. Rowling did something unusual in 2019, well, among the unusual things she did that year, in inviting readers to interpret her work in light of their ‘Lake’ inspiration as well as her intentional ‘Shed’ artistry. Writers like Lewis and Tolkien would be aghast at that, though Inkling Studies today necessarily include heavy biographical leanings in almost everything written about those authors. What is your take in general on what Lewis called ‘The Personal Heresy’ and about Rowling as a living author inviting that critical perspective while she is still among us?8. It’s fascinating, frankly, that you are not so compartmentalized in your reading that Rowling is still a writer you read outside of her fantasy and children’s literature. Do you read the Strike-Ellacott stories because you also love a good detective novel or is it your interest in Rowling and whatever she is writing?9. Have you read Christmas Pig? John believes that in fifty years, the Lord tarrying, high school and college students will read Pig as Rowling’s representative work the way we had to read Tale of Two Cities or Christmas Carol to be exposed to Dickens.10. John tries to read imaginative fiction through what he calls an “iconological lens,” a method born of his Perennialist beliefs and life as an Orthodox Christian. In what ways do you think your childhood and secondary education gave you a sympathy unusual for multi-valent texts than those born and raised in relatively ...
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    1 h et 51 min
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