Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. A Combination of Genres

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, Karlsruhe University of Education, language: English, abstract: The following essay aims to find answers to the question of how the combination of several different genres contributes to the fascination of the Harry Potter novels. This will, due to space restrictions, be achieved through an exemplary analysis of the three genres that were amongst the most frequently mentioned in connection with the Harry Potter books: Fantasy, the folktale, and the school story. Before taking a closer look at the three major genres of Harry Potter, the following chapter will first of all briefly define the concept of genre in general, give a short explanation of how genres can be used in terms of marketing strategies and of how they can influence the reader. The main emphasis of the essay will be on the following three chapters that are more or less constructed equally and contain in each case one of the above-mentioned genres. In the first part of each chapter, the genre will be defined and examined according to its origins, followed by an analysis of the main characteristics that constitute each genre. Subsequently, the characteristics of each genre will be analysed within Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, to show that Rowlings book series actually incorporates the different genres. Finally, it will be illustrated, how the three different genres affect the reader, leading to the fascination of the novels. As the fantasy genre influences all the others, this genre will be presented first and the most extensive, followed by the folktale and ultimately the school story.