The Origins Of The Literary Vampire

The long and distinguished tradition of the literary vampire began in Germany during the Age of Enlightenment. German literature was the first to adapt the vampire figure from central European folklore and superstition and give it literary form. Despite these German origins, scholarly attention devoted to literary vampires has consistently focused on a select set of sources: British and French literature, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and the phenomenon of the vampire superstition in general. While there have been many illuminating studies of pre-literary vampires and vampires that have already been firmly established as literary figures, the story of the crucial moment of transition from folkloric figure to literary subject has not yet been told. In The Origins of the Literary Vampire Heide Crawford redirects scholarly attention to the body of German poetry and prose where vampire folklore becomes vampire literature. This book focuses on the adaptation of the vampire superstition from central European folklore by German poets in the 18th and early 19th centuries for an audience that had become increasingly interested in superstition and occult phenomena in an Age of Enlightenment. In addition to establishing that the origins of the literary vampire in 18th and 19th century German poetry and prose were informed by the stories and reports of vampires from Central Europe, Crawford argues that the German poets who adapted this figure from superstition for their creative work immediately molded it into a metaphor for contemporary cultural anxieties and fears—a connection that would inspire horror literature in general and the traits of the literary vampire in particular for the 19th century and beyond. Contemporary culture has exhibited a marked fascination with eroticized and politicized applications of the vampire. This volume traces these erotic motifs, common political motifs and others to the first vampire poems that were written by German poets. Consequently, this book answers three central questions: What were the origins of the literary vampire; how was the vampire of folklore and superstition adapted for literature; and how did German poets contribute to the development of the vampire and Gothic horror literature? By answering these and other questions, The Origins of the Literary Vampire explains how the literary vampire became the ubiquitous horror figure it is today.

Since the publication of John Polidori's The Vampyre (1819), the vampire has been a mainstay of Western culture, appearing consistently in literature, art, music (notably opera), film, television, graphic novels and popular culture in general. Even before its entrance into the realm of arts and letters in the early nineteenth century, the vampire was a feared creature of Eastern European folklore and legend, rising from the grave at night to consume its living loved ones and neighbors, often converting them at the same time into fellow vampires. A major question exists within vampire scholarship: to what extent is this creature a product of European cultural forms, or is the vampire indeed a universal, perhaps even archetypal figure? In this collection of sixteen original essays, the contributors shed light on this question. One essay traces the origins of the legend to the early medieval Norse draugr, an "undead" creature who reflects the underpinnings of Dracula, the latter first appearing as a vampire in Anglo-Irish Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula. In addition to these investigations of the Western mythic, literary and historic traditions, other essays in this volume move outside Europe to explore vampire figures in Native American and Mesoamerican myth and ritual, as well as the existence of similar vampiric traditions in Japanese, Russian and Latin American art, theatre, literature, film, and other cultural productions. The female vampire looms large, beginning with the Sumerian goddess Lilith, including the nineteenth-century Carmilla, and moving to vampiresses in twentieth-century film, literature, and television series. Scientific explanations for vampires and werewolves constitute another section of the book, including eighteenth-century accounts of unearthing, decapitation and cremation of suspected vampires in Eastern Europe. The vampire's beauty, attainment of immortality and eternal youth are all suggested as reasons for its continued success in contemporary popular culture.

String garlic by the window and hang a cross around your neck! The most powerful vampire of all time returns in our Stepping Stone Classic adaption of the original tale by Bran Stoker. Follow Johnathan Harker, Mina Harker, and Dr. Abraham van Helsing as they discover the true nature of evil. Their battle to destroy Count Dracula takes them from the crags of his castle to the streets of London... and back again.

“An illuminating contribution to scholarship on the vampire figure.”—Slavic Review Even before Bram Stoker immortalized Transylvania as the homeland of his fictional Count Dracula, the figure of the vampire was inextricably tied to Eastern Europe in the popular imagination. Drawing on a wealth of previously neglected sources, this book offers a fascinating account of how vampires—whose various incarnations originally emerged from folk traditions from all over the world—became so strongly identified with Eastern Europe. It demonstrates that the modern conception of the vampire was born in the crucible of the Enlightenment, embodying a mysterious, Eastern otherness that stood opposed to Western rationality. From the Prologue: From Original Sin to Eternal Life For a broad contemporary public, the vampire has become a star, a media sensation from Hollywood. Bestselling authors such as Bram Stoker, Anne Rice and Stephenie Meyer continue to fire the imaginations of young and old alike, and bloodsuckers have achieved immortality through films like Dracula, Interview with a Vampireand Twilight. It is no wonder that, in the teenage bedrooms of our globalized world, vampires even steal the show from Harry Potter. They have long since been assigned individual personalities and treated with sympathy. They may possess superhuman powers, but they are also burdened by their immortality and have to learn to come to terms with their craving for blood. Whereas the Southeast European vampire, discovered in the 1730s, underwent an Americanization and domestication in the media landscape of the twentieth century, the creole zombies that first became known through the cheap novels and horror films of the 1920s still continue to serve as brainless horror figures. Do bloodsuckers really exist and should we really be afraid of the dead? These are the questions that I seek to tackle, following the wishes of my daughter, who was ten when I started this project.

An authoritative new history of the vampire, two hundred years after it first appeared on the literary scene Published to mark the bicentenary of John Polidori’s publication of The Vampyre, Nick Groom’s detailed new account illuminates the complex history of the iconic creature. The vampire first came to public prominence in the early eighteenth century, when Enlightenment science collided with Eastern European folklore and apparently verified outbreaks of vampirism, capturing the attention of medical researchers, political commentators, social theorists, theologians, and philosophers. Groom accordingly traces the vampire from its role as a monster embodying humankind’s fears, to that of an unlikely hero for the marginalized and excluded in the twenty-first century. Drawing on literary and artistic representations, as well as medical, forensic, empirical, and sociopolitical perspectives, this rich and eerie history presents the vampire as a strikingly complex being that has been used to express the traumas and contradictions of the human condition.

Mark Jenkins’s engrossing history draws on the latest science, anthropological and archaeological research to explore the origins of vampire stories, providing gripping historic and folkloric context for the concept of immortal beings who defy death by feeding on the lifeblood of others. From the earliest whispers of eternal evil in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, vampire tales flourished through the centuries and around the globe, fueled by superstition, sexual mystery, fear of disease and death, and the nagging anxiety that demons lurk everywhere. In Vampire Forensics, Mark Jenkins probes vampire legend to tease out the historical truths enshrined in the tales of terror: sherds of Persian pottery depicting blood-sucking demons; the amazing recent discovery by National Geographic archaeologist Matteo Borrini of a 16th-century Venetian grave of a plague victim and suspected vampire; and the Transylvanian castle of "Vlad the Impaler," whose bloodthirsty cruelty remains unsurpassed. Jenkins navigates centuries of lore and legend, adding new chapters to the chronicle and weaving an irresistibly seductive blend of superstition, psychology, and science sure to engross everyone from Anne Rice’s countless readers to serious students of archaeology and mythology.

The record-breaking phenomenon from Elizabeth Kostova is a celebrated masterpiece that "refashioned the vampire myth into a compelling contemporary novel, a late-night page-turner" (San Francisco Chronicle). Breathtakingly suspenseful and beautifully written, The Historian is the story of a young woman plunged into a labyrinth where the secrets of her family’s past connect to an inconceivable evil: the dark fifteenth-century reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive through the ages. The search for the truth becomes an adventure of monumental proportions, taking us from monasteries and dusty libraries to the capitals of Eastern Europe—in a feat of storytelling so rich, so hypnotic, so exciting that it has enthralled readers around the world. “Part thriller, part history, part romance...Kostova has a keen sense of storytelling and she has a marvelous tale to tell.” —Baltimore Sun

Bachelorarbeit aus dem Jahr 2015 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Literatur, Note: 1,3, Universität Bayreuth, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: This paper aims to explain the development of the vampire in English literature from the 19th century to the present, from a merciless evil monster to a beautiful hero. I will examine this evolution according to the already explained reasons: the use of vampires as metaphors for their age and as figures who give readers the possibility to reflect themselves in them. To form a basis I will start with an investigation of the vampires’ origins in Eastern European folklore and the figures’ entry into literature. This chapter will also include an examination of reasons for the vampires’ constant popularity and development, with view to the observations of different researchers. Based on this I will examine the selected works in three categories. At first I will take a look at the shape of vampires, mainly focusing on their appearances and behavior and their connection to the corresponding ages. The next two chapters will concentrate on depictions of sexuality and gender, and of religion in the novels and how different treatments of these topics led to changing images of vampires. Reasons for the selection of these topics will be given in chapter two. Finally I will summarize my observations and check if the reasons for the development of the vampire, elaborated in the second chapter, are correct.