From an interesting article here:
Harry Potter influences and analogues - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The link gives you more information and comparisons with some details. It's quite fascinating actually.
Below is a list, for your convenience:
Harry Potter
Influences
- British folklore and mythology
- The Iliad, Homer
- The Bible
- "The Pardoner's Tale," Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
- Macbeth, William Shakespeare
- Emma, Jane Austen
- The Story of the Treasure Seekers, E. Nesbit
- The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
- Dorothy L. Sayers
- The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis
- The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge
- The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White
- Manxmouse, Paul Gallico
- Jessica Mitford
Analogues
- The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
- Tom Brown's Schooldays, Thomas Hughes
- The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
- Roald Dahl
- X-Men
- The Chronicles of Prydain series, Lloyd Alexander
- The Dark Is Rising sequence, Susan Cooper
- A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin
- The Worst Witch series, Jill Murphy
- Charmed Life, Diana Wynne Jones
- Discworld series, Terry Pratchett
- Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
- Young Sherlock Holmes (film)
- Troll (film)
- The Books of Magic comic series, Neil Gaiman
- Spellcasting series (text adventure)
- Wizard's Hall, Jane Yolen
- The Secret of Platform 13, Eva Ibbotson
Of course, this raises questions of sources and originality. Rowling, as history's first billionaire author, is notorious for being obtuse, vague, or evasive about her authorship with regard to originality. There are a number of ways to look at it.
For example, you have Orson Scott Card, who says, "I thought we were both just stealing from T.H. White; very straightforward." On the other hand, you have Ursula Le Guin, who says, "[that Rowling] could have been more gracious about her predecessors. My incredulity was at the critics who found the first book wonderfully original. She has many virtues, but originality isn't one of them. That hurt."
I haven't read the Harry Potter series yet, but I imagine I will one day. I have seen the movies up to the most recent one (second last one). Even in those, I can spot the influence of such things at Joseph Campbell's monomyth. Several elements were certainly parallel to such popular works as
The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. Not necessarily in content, but certainly in form.
The above article is great for outlining these things and drawing comparisons. What do you think of this? What do you think about Rowling's addressing of sources, influences, and parallels?
Those of you who loved Harry Potter, would you consider exploring the above works as well?