This project takes a diachronic approach to look at how the wizard has evolved from its linguistic origins as the wise-man into the modern literary figure found today. The project serves to show how the wizard of the contemporary imagination is built upon many reworked representations of the archetype over many historical periods. This includes an exploration of how the various magician, sorcerer and conjurer types that have become amalgamated with the wizard tradition form distinct stages of the wizard’s development. Lastly, the research turns to contemporary depictions of the wizard as hero, rather than its traditional role as advisor, and asks what ramifications this has for the wizard archetype and what it might imply for the next stage of the figure’s development.
(Supervisors: Prof Bill Gray, Dr Duncan Salkeld and Dr Amanda Richardson (History) )