Between Icon & Idol
Harry Potter & Imagination’s Symbolic Life
by S. M. Hutchens
J K. Rowling has, like C. S. Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia, created an exciting story of redemption within the world of modern ugliness and alienation, a world in which a drab and common boy with dismal prospects is revealed as what he has in fact been from birth: someone who counts for something, whose well-intentioned labors count for good and are rewarded with appreciation, understanding, and the hope of greatness.
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S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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more on imagination from the online archives
19.10—December 2006
Training Up a Child Requires a Well-Formed Imagination by David Mills
11.5—September/October 1998
Speaking the Truths Only the Imagination May Grasp
An Essay on Myth & 'Real Life' by Stratford Caldecott
18.4—May 2005
The Idylls, Idols & Devils That Corrupt the Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian
more from the online archives
15.6—July/August 2002
Things Hidden Since the Beginning of the World
The Shape of Divine Providence & Human History by James Hitchcock
33.1—January/February 2020
Do You Know Your Child’s Doctor?
The Politicization of Pediatrics in America by Alexander F. C. Webster
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