“Witchcraft” and “Magic” in Literature and Fantasy Genre's role in Education

As already mentioned before, witchcraft is a topic that has been a great influence in literature, history, and even in our culture; but today I’m just going to focus in literature…

I consider literature as a form of art in which the human expresses ideas that are product of his mind and creativity. Literature can also be seen as a huge world that is divided by genres, for example: romance, fantasy, science fiction, horror, crime, mystery, etc. I was reading a web page from the University of Florida called “Genre Fiction as Literature”, where it said that the fantasy literature was the one where elements such as witches, wizards, and magic can be seen. Matt Sanchez also says that fantasy is the richest type of literature in which characters are introduced into world or places where unexplainable and unexpected situations occur, and that it is the only one that can erase the boundaries between children’s fiction and adult fiction (iml.jou.ufl.edu).

There are a lot of examples of fantasy works in which the main topic is “wizardry” or “magic” but some of the titles that I know are the “Harry Potter” series by J.K. Rowling (one of my favorite series), “One Thousand and One Nights”, “The Lord of the Rings” books by J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Eyes of the Dragon” by Stephen King, and “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis.

Witchcraft and magic in fantasy literature also plays a role in education. According to an article called “Children's Literature Across the Curriculum: An Ontario Survey”, it is said that the genre of fantasy is used by a 45.6% by teachers and librarians in Canada to give classes to children that belong to primary grades because it has a strong influence on student’s attitudes, values, and beliefs; also the use of this genre helps to see the emotions and themes that come from other human’s mind and how all this had an influence in the author’s work (Pantaleo). In conclusion, according to all the ideas that were explained before, it can be said that magic and witchcraft have a great influence in literature and even in education. Maybe this topic about magic does not exist but, in my opinion, it helps to develop creativity and critical thinking skills. That kind of literature is the one that kids prefer because it results interesting for them.

Well, that’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed it… Check this blog next week because I’ll write about “Harry Potter” series and its impact in our society.

Works Cited:

Pantaleon, Sylvia. “Children’s Literature Across the Curriculum: An Ontario Survey” Education (2002): 211-30. ProQuest. Web. 30 August 2011.

Sanchez, Matt. “Fantasy”. Genre Fiction as Literature. Web University of Florida Interactive Media Lab, 2005. Web. 30 Aug. 2011 < http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring05/Sanchez/fantasy3.htm>

*Doubts of how I cited the article? Check http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02/ at the electronic source section.

"Witchcraft Persecution"

The last time that I wrote something in the blog was about the terms of “witch”, “wizard”, and “witchcraft” but now I’m going to talk a little bit about: witchcraft persecutions. This persecutions started around 1233 when the Pope, called Gregory IX, charged a tribunal, nowadays known as “The Inquisition” which had the purpose of suppress or eliminate non-Christian activities, for example: the practice of witchcraft, satanic rituals, etcetera; but then in 1320, Pope John XXII declared that paganism was everything considered as a hostile or aggressive threat to the society. Later, in 1484, Heinrich Kraemer and Jacob Sprenger wrote the “Malleus Malificarum” and they even published with the help of the Pope Innocent VIII. The “Malleus Malificarum” was a manual dedicated to witch hunters and it became used for about 300 years in order to destroy paganism in Europe (Occult 100, ocult100.com).

During this period, a lot of people died (women, men, and even children) but not all of them were pagans, witches or satanists. Inquisitors used torture, rape, forced sodomy, and mutilations as a way to destroy paganism. Propaganda and the fear of communities became used to realize that kind of murders and it became spread to other parts of the world, not just in Europe, for example: in the United States where the Salem witchcraft trials took place (Occult 100, ocult100.com).

Some facts that are known as a result of these persecutions were that, from 1500 to 1660, Europe had between 50,000 to 80,000 suspects that were classified as witches; all of them became executed: 80% were women. A curious fact is that Germany had the highest rate of executions with 26,000 in comparison with other European countries such as France with 10,000 executions, England with 1,000, and Ireland with 4 executions (Linder, law2.umkc.edu).

Now I would like to talk a little bit more about the Salem witchcraft trials, just to show you what happened. The Salem witchcraft trials took place in the United States from 1692 to 1693, where several men and women became accused of practicing witchcraft. Some of them became hanged on Gallows Hll, others went to jail and died there, and other ones became tortured (Linder, The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary, law2.umkc.edu). Well that’s everything for today… Next week I’m going to talk about how the wizardry and magic had an impact at literature .

Works Cited:

*Linder, Douglas. "A Brief History of Witchcraft Persecutions before Salem." 2005. University of Missouri: Kansas City. 24 August 2011 .

*—. "The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary ." n.d. University of Missouri: Kansas City. 24 August 2011 .

*Occult 100. "The Burning Times & Basic History of Witch Persecution." 2010. Occult 100: Search and Archive. 24 August 2011 .