Kulturphänomen Harry Potter

Today, the controversies surrounding J.K. Rowling’s bestseller series have settled down a bit. From a distance we can now gain an at least somewhat more distanced view of Harry Potter and pose the question of how such a literary work with many thousands of pages has found such a devoted readership although it takes place in a fantastic world that is as culturally specific and national as any we have ever seen in international literature. The public discussion, especially with the publication of the final volume in the series, tells us a lot about our thoughts and expectations for literature. We are especially interested in the texts; we follow up on particular passages; we try to determine connections to real people, literary motifs, figures, traditions and narrative styles. Harry Potter transgresses boundaries – those of language, marketing, readership, literary genres and traditions. The varied ways of looking at this series means revising the normal approaches of literary criticism.