Transformations within the Symbols on the Background of Cultural Metamorphoses on the Example of The Literary Image of “Owls”

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Pages: 295-309

Abstract:

Throughout the centuries, the image of owl has grown into a rich symbolism from the Greek attribute of wisdom to the Roman herald of death. The symbolism formerly was associated with a state of knowledge at that time, or rather with lack of knowledge about a nocturnal predator. Human fantasy endows with increasing knowledge and declining populations with new, often different from known meanings to make owls likable, beautiful, nice, and thus keep them alive. On the basis of selected literary works (for example: J. Flavius, W. Shakespeare, I. Krasicki, A. Mickiewicz and the cult children’s books such as: 𝑃𝑖𝑛𝑜𝑐𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑜, 𝑊𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑜ℎ, animal stories by Vitaly Bianka and 𝐻𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟) I follow changes in cultural symbolic meanings. The beginning of a scientific (different from the dominant in XIX century superstition-folk) approach to night birds dates back to the interwar years ("The Forest Newspaper" [1928] and the fairy tales by Vitaly Bianka). Radical change of owl’s image in literature is brought by Joanne K. Rowling's novels in the book series Harry Potter [1997].They are presented as a useful and generous (eg. they spread mail with dedication in any time of the year), their attractiveness is emphasized by the fact that the main character’s pet is a white owl named Hedwig (the white colour represents “purity" ,,and the namesake saints are: heilige Hedwig and St. Jadwiga). Owls in the novel have names and their possession among the children is considered to be ,,fashionable". The extraordinary beauty of these birds was shown especially in the adaptation of the first volume of the novel. I strongly believe that the literary "character" of the owls presented at Harry Potter put a beginning to further transformations of the cultural meanings of this symbol.

Keywords:

owl, cultural change, symbol, 𝐻𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟

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