I know some of y'all might be getting tired of Harry Potter references, but I had to throw this out there, especially since we're starting a unit on ancient Greek literature. Snape's first question to Harry in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" (J.K. Rowling) This seemingly ridiculously difficult question has a much deeper meaning. In Greek mythology, Persephone wears a crown of asphodel as Queen of the Underworld, hence asphodel's meaning of "my regrets follow you to the grave." Asphodel is a special bloom of lily. Additionally, wormwood signifies absence and profound, bitter sorrow. So if you combine these hidden meanings, you get something along the lines of "I deeply regret Lily's death." Additionally, wormwood is closely related to solar and lunar deities, specifically Artemis, whose image is associated with a deer. Both Snape and Lily have a doe patronus.
I'm not crying, you're crying.
I got the information from this article: https://www.bustle.com/articles/123103-the-heartbreaking-truth-behind-snapes-first-words-to-harry-in-harry-potter
4 comments:
I think this is really cool! I've always been fascinated with the way that J.K Rowling managed to foreshadow and plan things out years into the future. She had this whole complex plan for the entire series before she even wrote the first book. When Ally, one of my sisters, re-read the whole series again a year or two ago, she was able to pick up on very subtle hints that foreshadow things to come, details you wouldn't have picked up on if you didn't already know the whole story. While it's not as extensive because it's only for one book, I think the first line of "Catcher in the Rye" is similarly very significant and relates to a large topic of the novel. In it, the author establishes Holden Caulfield as struggling with the truth. It is also spoken in the second voice, to the reader. However, at the end of the book, it is revealed that the story is actually Holden retelling events of his life to a psychiatrist. I just think it's really amazing how authors put so much planning into a book and have a whole roadmap with these little details that really add to the story.
I think that we as a culture do not put as much emphasis on past stories or meaning of everyday things, like flowers, as people have in other cultures or other times. We do not (for the most part) grow up hearing the ancient mythology, like Ovid's compilation or the Odyssey or the Iliad. Though we study them much later in our lives, like now, I did not learn it when I was little.
I went through a phase where I researched the meanings of flowers because some of the stories that I read used flowers as a method for people to send messages to each other. I find that flowers and plants can convey a meaning, and that at one point nobility would actually send messages in flowers and fan signs captivating. In 1819, there was even a book written on the language of flowers.
https://www.proflowers.com/blog/floriography-language-flowers-victorian-era
I also find the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called Darmok, which is about a race of aliens that speak completely in metaphors based off their own mythology applicable to this because if more people knew the meanings of the flowers and plants that Rowling references than we would be able to understand the book to a greater extent.
Hi, Clara!
I really enjoyed your post. As everyone knows, and is most likely tired of hearing, I love Greek myth and, as seen from my last post, Harry Potter. To further continue your point, next Snape asks Harry to differentiate a function, kidding. He asks him to differentiate between monkshood and wolfsbane. Monkshood, commonly associated with chivalry, directly contrasts wolfsbane, which has a misanthropic connotation. According to Rowling, this second comparison the shows us Snape's true nature of his desire to be the perfect gentleman towards Lily and his torn feelings because of her spouse, James, whom he truly despised.
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