Harry Potter è il tramonto dell’Occidente?
19/7/2005L’enigmatico “Spengler” scrive oggi su AsiaTimes Online:
The spiritual tradition of the West, which begins with classic tragedy and continues through St Augustine’s Confessions, tells us just the contrary, namely, that one’s inner feelings are the problem, not the solution. The West is a construct, the result of a millennium of war against the inner feelings of the barbarian invaders whom Christianity turned into Europeans. Paganism exults in its unchanging, autochthonous character, and glorifies the native impulses of its people; Christianity despises these impulses and attempts to root them out. Western tradition demands that the individual must draw upon something better than one’s inner feelings. Narcissism where one’s innermost feelings are concerned therefore is the supreme hallmark of decadence.
Ora, il narcisismo — un segno tangibile della decadenza — è secondo “Spengler” il marchio di Harry Potter e dei suoi personaggi.
Inoltre nella grande letteratura occidentale, continua il nostro, è caratteristica fondamentale del personaggio-cardine il fatto di non essere ancora quel che deve diventare:
What characterizes the protagonists of great fiction in an ascendant culture? It is that they are not yet what they should be. The characters of Western literature in its time of flowering either must overcome defining flaws, or come to grief. Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet must give up her pride; Dickens’ Pip must look past the will-o’-the-wisp of his expectations; Mann’s Hans Castorp must confront mortality; Tolstoy’s Pierre must learn to love; Cervantes’ Don Quixote must learn to help ordinary people rather than the personages of romance; Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister must act in the real world rather than the stage. Goethe’s Faust I have long considered the definitive masterwork of Western literature, first of all because its explicit subject is the transformation of character.
Il successo di Harry Potter è dunque un segno di decadenza?
