The Sorting Hat Strikes Back
Dec. 20th, 2012 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWe had so much fun a few months ago sorting US presidents into Hogwarts houses that I thought I’d break out the Sorting Hat again – but not for presidents this time. No: this time, it’s Nineteenth Century British Novelists edition! I’ve listed a few, favorites of mine or famous in general or simply authors I know a certain amount about, but feel free to jump in with more novelists! Where would Sir Walter Scott go? (I’m thinking Gryffindor.) How about Anthony Trollope? Which house would suffer through Thomas Hardy?
(And yes, we’re limiting it to 19th century so we can having a future British Authors Through the Ages edition. Shakespeare and Chaucer and Tolkien, oh my!)
Jane Austen: Ravenclaw all the way. It’s not just that she’s wittier than everyone else: it’s that wit is of paramount importance for her.
Charlotte Bronte: I’ve pondered this at some length, but I think in the end Bronte’s coming up Gryffindor. She’s sharp as a tack, of course, but the life of the mind is not paramount for her; it’s hard to see her caring about getting along with people enough to be a Hufflepuff; and while she was in her way ambitious, the real yearning that I see in her is for greatness and adventure rather than power.
A Gryffindor tragically stymied by her society. Oh, poor Charlotte.
I think this is the reason that Bronte is so much angrier than Austen: it was possible though difficult for a woman to carve out a Ravenclaw role for herself, but much more difficult (though not impossible! See Hester Stanhope) to make a Gryffindor role.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Gryffindor! He was a very active, sporting fellow, a big believer in chivalry and a champion of (sometimes rather nutty) causes.
Charles Dickens: SUCH A GRYFFINDOR. A Gryffindor in the crusading Hermione mode, except instead of “Free the house elves!” his cause is “Feed the orphans!”
Though a case could be made for Slytherin tendencies. The man had definite ambition.
George Eliot: This is a tough one. On the one hand, you could argue for crusading Gryffindor; on the other, Eliot is very into the life of the mind – think Middlemarch. Although Mr. Casaubon can perhaps be read as a rejection of a life solely of the mind.
Eliot might be a Hermione: a scholarly Gryffindor with crusading tendencies.
Mary Shelley: My Shelley expert suggests Gryffindor, but my Shelley expert also believes that Ravenclaw is “boring” and stopped reading Harry Potter after book 5, so I think we can safely ignore her. I think Shelley might be the rare Hufflepuff author: she wrote as a result of a bet, not because of literary ambition. And she took amazing care of Percy Shelley’s legacy after he died, even though he was a total jackass to her.
(And yes, we’re limiting it to 19th century so we can having a future British Authors Through the Ages edition. Shakespeare and Chaucer and Tolkien, oh my!)
Jane Austen: Ravenclaw all the way. It’s not just that she’s wittier than everyone else: it’s that wit is of paramount importance for her.
Charlotte Bronte: I’ve pondered this at some length, but I think in the end Bronte’s coming up Gryffindor. She’s sharp as a tack, of course, but the life of the mind is not paramount for her; it’s hard to see her caring about getting along with people enough to be a Hufflepuff; and while she was in her way ambitious, the real yearning that I see in her is for greatness and adventure rather than power.
A Gryffindor tragically stymied by her society. Oh, poor Charlotte.
I think this is the reason that Bronte is so much angrier than Austen: it was possible though difficult for a woman to carve out a Ravenclaw role for herself, but much more difficult (though not impossible! See Hester Stanhope) to make a Gryffindor role.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Gryffindor! He was a very active, sporting fellow, a big believer in chivalry and a champion of (sometimes rather nutty) causes.
Charles Dickens: SUCH A GRYFFINDOR. A Gryffindor in the crusading Hermione mode, except instead of “Free the house elves!” his cause is “Feed the orphans!”
Though a case could be made for Slytherin tendencies. The man had definite ambition.
George Eliot: This is a tough one. On the one hand, you could argue for crusading Gryffindor; on the other, Eliot is very into the life of the mind – think Middlemarch. Although Mr. Casaubon can perhaps be read as a rejection of a life solely of the mind.
Eliot might be a Hermione: a scholarly Gryffindor with crusading tendencies.
Mary Shelley: My Shelley expert suggests Gryffindor, but my Shelley expert also believes that Ravenclaw is “boring” and stopped reading Harry Potter after book 5, so I think we can safely ignore her. I think Shelley might be the rare Hufflepuff author: she wrote as a result of a bet, not because of literary ambition. And she took amazing care of Percy Shelley’s legacy after he died, even though he was a total jackass to her.
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-20 12:39 pm (UTC)Who would be in Hufflepuff?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-20 02:57 pm (UTC)I'm thinking someone like Anthony Trollope might be either Slytherin or Hufflepuff. He had a very business-like, ambitious approach to his writing: he wrote every morning for two hours; if he finished a book fifteen minutes before his two hours was up, he would refill his inkwell and start the next.
But on the other hand, his books tend to refute Slytherin values. They uphold a (rather conservative) vision of social harmony, which seems very Hufflepuff to me.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-21 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-22 07:19 am (UTC)