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Vampire fiction

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vampire fiction covers the spectrum of literary work concerned principally with the subject of vampires. The best known work in this genre is, of course, Bram Stoker's gothic novel Dracula. It was not, however, the first. The literary vampire first appeared in poetry rather than prose.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Eighteenth Century

Vampire fiction is rooted in the 'vampire craze' of the 1720's and 1730's, which culminated in the somewhat bizarre official exumations of suspected vampires Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole in Serbia under the Habsburg Monarchy. One of the first works of art to touch upon the subject is the short German poem The Vampire (1748) by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, where the theme already has strong erotic overtones: a man whose love is rejected by a respectable and pious maiden threatens to pay her a nightly visit, drink her blood by giving her the seductive kiss of the vampire and thus prove her that his teaching is better than her mother's Christianity. Furthermore, there have been a number of tales about a dead person returning from the grave to visit his/her beloved or spouse and bring them death in one day or another, the narrative poem Lenore (1773) by Gottfried August Bürger being a notable 18th century example. One of its lines Denn die Todten reiten schnell ("For the dead travel fast") was to be quoted in Bram Stoker's classic Dracula. A later German poem exploring the same subject with a prominent vampiric element was The Bride of Corinth (1797) by Goethe, a story about a young woman who returns from the grave to seek her betrothed:

From my grave to wander I am forced
Still to seek the God's long server'd link,
Still to love the bridegroom I have lost,
And the lifeblood of his heart to drink.

The story is turned into an expression of the conflict between Heathendom and Christianity: the family of the dead girl are Christians, while the young man and his relatives are still pagans. It turns out that it was the girl's Christian mother who broke off her engagement and forced her to become a nun, eventually driving her to death. The motive behind the girl's return as a "spectre" is that "e'en Earth can never cool down love". Goethe had been inspired by the story of Philinnion by Phlegon of Tralles, a tale from classical Greece. However, in that tale, the youth is not the girl's betrothed, no religious conflict is present, no actual sucking of blood occurs, and the girl's return from the dead is said to be sanctioned by the gods of the Underworld. She relapses into death upon being exposed, and the issue is settled by burning her body outside of the city walls and making an apotropaic sacrifice to the deities involved.

The first mention of vampires in English literature appears in Robert Southey's monumental oriental epic poem Thalaba the Destroyer (1797), where the main character Thalaba's deceased beloved Oneiza turns into a vampire, although that occurrence is actually marginal to the story. It has been argued (Leatherdale 1993: 46-9) that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Christabel (written between 1797 and 1801, but not published until 1816) has influenced the development of vampire fiction: the heroine Christabel is seduced by a female supernatural being called Geraldine who tricks her way into her residence and eventually tries to marry her after having assumed the appearance of an old beloved of hers. The story bears a remarkable resemblance to the overtly vampiric story of Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1872).

[edit] Nineteenth Century

In a passage in his epic poem The Giaour (1813), Lord Byron alludes to the traditional folkloric conception of the vampire as a being damned to suck the blood and destroy the life of its nearest relations:

Lord Byron in Albanian Costume, painted by Thomas Phillips in 1813
Enlarge
Lord Byron in Albanian Costume, painted by Thomas Phillips in 1813
But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life;
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corse:
Thy victims ere they yet expire
Shall know the demon for their sire,
As cursing thee, thou cursing them,
Thy flowers are withered on the stem.

Byron also composed a enigmatic fragmentary story concerning the mysterious fate of an aristocrat named Augustus Darvell whilst journeying in the Orient - as his contribution to the famous ghost story competition at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in 1816, between him, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and John William Polidori (who was Byron's personal physician). This story provided the basis for the The Vampyre (1819) by Polidori. This short story was the first example of the vampire in prose fiction. Byron's own wild life became the model for Polidori's undead protagonist Lord Ruthven. Polidori's Lord Ruthven seems to be the first appearance of the modern vampire: an undead, vampiric being possessing a developed intellect and preternatural charm, as well as physical attraction. By contrast, the vampire of folklore was almost invariably thought of as a hideous, unappealing creature.

An unauthorized sequel to Polidori's tale by Cyprien Bérard called Lord Ruthwen ou les Vampires (1820) was adapted by Charles Nodier into the first vampire stage melodrama, which was in turn made into an opera by German composer Heinrich Marschner.

An important later example of 19th century Vampire fiction is the penny dreadful epic Varney the Vampire (1847) featuring Sir Francis Varney as the Vampire. In this story we have the first example of the standard trope in which the vampire comes through the window at night and attacks a maiden as she lies sleeping.

Similar erotic fixations are evident in Sheridan le Fanu's classic novella Carmilla (1872) which featured a female vampire with lesbian inclinations who seduces the heroine Laura whilst draining her of her vital fluids. Le Fanu's story is set in the Duchy of Styria. Such central European locations became a standard feature of vampire fiction.

[edit] Dracula

Filmgoers met Dracula (Bela Lugosi) in 1931 in a landmark vampire film.
Enlarge
Filmgoers met Dracula (Bela Lugosi) in 1931 in a landmark vampire film.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) has been the definitive description of the vampire in popular fiction for the last century. Its portrayal of vampirism as a disease (contagious demonic possession), with its undertones of sex, blood, and death, struck a chord in a Victorian Britain where tuberculosis and syphilis were common. A decade before in 1888, the press had sensationalized Jack the Ripper's sexualized murders of prostitutes during his reign of terror in East London.

The name Count Dracula was inspired by a real person, Vlad Ţepeş (Vlad the Impaler). Ţepeş was a notorious Wallachian (Romanian) prince of the 15th century, also known by as Vlad III Dracula. Unlike the historical personage, however, Stoker located his Count Dracula in a castle near the Borgo Pass in Transylvania, and ascribed to that area the supernatural aura it retains to this day in the popular imagination.

Stoker likely drew inspiration from Irish myths of blood-sucking creatures. He was also influenced by a contemporary vampire story, Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu. Le Fanu was Stoker's editor when Stoker was a theatre critic in Dublin, Ireland. Like Le Fanu, Stoker created compelling female vampire characters such as Lucy Westenra and the Brides of Dracula.

[edit] Twentieth Century

Most 20th-century vampire fiction draws heavily on Stoker's work. Early films such as Nosferatu and those featuring Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee are examples of this. Nosferatu, in fact, was so clearly based on Dracula that Stoker's widow sued for copyright infringement and won. As a result of the suit, most prints of the film were destroyed. She later allowed the film to be shown in England.

Though most later works of vampire fiction do not feature Dracula as a character, there are typically clear thematic ties. These include the association of the vampire with great wealth and erotic power, as well as frequent use of Gothic settings and iconography.

Prior to the mid-1950s, vampires were usually presented as supernatural beings with mystical powers. Discussion of the transmission of vampirism was sketchy at best. This changed with the publication of I Am Legend by author Richard Matheson in (1954). The story of a future Los Angeles, overrun with undead cannibalistic/bloodsucking beings changed the genre forever. One man is the sole survivor of a pandemic of a bacterium that causes vampirism. He must fight to survive attacks from the hordes of nocturnal creatures, discover the secrets of their biology, and develop effective countermeasures. This was the first piece of fiction with an analytical slant towards vampires.

The 1981 novel and 1983 film The Hunger also examined the biology of vampires, suggesting that their special abilities were the result of physical properties of their blood. The novel suggested that vampires were not undead humans, but a separate species that had evolved alongside humans.

The Vampire Chronicles series of novels by Anne Rice are the most popular in a genre of modern stories that use vampires as sympathetic protagonists rather than monsters or villains.

[edit] Traits of vampires in fiction

In contrast to the numerous and contradictory beliefs about vampires in traditional folklore (see vampire), the Western literary tradition has seen the rise of a more or less unified image of the vampire. This image maintains certain folkloric traits but discards others. This new vampire archetype has spread to modern cinema and popular culture in general, although individual works may vary from this norm.

The fiction of the 19th century, especially Bram Stoker's Dracula, has been hugely influential. Fictional vampires can be romantic figures, often described as elegant and sexy (compare demons such as succubus and incubus). This is in stark contrast to the vampire of Eastern European folklore, which was a horrifying animated corpse.

A well-known set of special "powers" and weaknesses is commonly associated with vampires in contemporary fiction:

  • Vampires, being already dead, do not need human sustenance such as food, water, or even oxygen. They are sometimes portrayed as being unable to eat human food at all, forcing them either avoid public dining or mime chewing and eating to deceive their mortal victims. They often have a pale appearance (not the dark or ruddy skin of folkloric vampires), and their skin is cool to the touch.
  • Fictional vampires are sometimes considered to be shape-shifters, with the ability to transform themselves into animals such as bats, rats, and wolves. Some vampires are even described as being able to change into fog or mist.
  • Some vampires can fly. This power may be supernatural levitation, or it may be connected to the vampire's shape-shifting ability.
  • Vampires cast no shadow and have no reflection. In modern fiction, this may extend to the idea that vampires cannot be photographed. This concept originated with Stoker, who derived it from the idea that mirrors portray one's soul--something that most vampires lack.
  • Some traditions hold that a vampire cannot enter a house unless he or she is invited in. Generally, a vampire need be invited in only once and can then come and go at will.
  • Some tales maintain that vampires must return to a coffin or to their "native soil" before sunrise to take their rest safely. Others place native soil in their coffins, especially if they have relocated. Still other vampire stories such as Le Fanu's Carmilla maintain that vampires must return to their coffins, but sleep in several inches of blood as opposed to soil.
  • Werewolves are sometimes held to become vampires after death. Other fiction, however, holds werewolves to be the mortal enemies of vampires.
  • As in folklore, the vampire of fiction can usually be warded off with garlic and symbols of Christian faith such as holy water, the crucifix, or a rosary). Some stories have extended this power to all religious icons, any object through which faith is channelled, or religious icons that are significant to the vampire itself. For instance, a formerly Jewish vampire might recoil from the Star of David.
  • A vampire may be destroyed by a silver or consecrated bullet, a wooden stake through the heart, decapitation, or incineration. However, one of the most common means for killing the fictional vampire is exposure to daylight. This idea seems to have originated with the 1922 film Nosferatu, but vulnerability to sunlight has become popularly accepted as a standard vampire weakness. Still, the magnitude of vulnerability varies with the story. In Stoker, for example, Dracula is merely weakened, not destroyed, by sunlight.
  • Some fictional vampires are fascinated with counting, an idea derived from folk stories about vampires being compelled to stop and count any spilled grain they find in their path. The most famous fictional counting vampire is likely Muppet character Count von Count on television's Sesame Street. Other examples include a fifth season episode of the X-Files titled Bad Blood, and the Discworld novel, "Carpe Jugulum" by Terry Pratchett.
  • Since the 1958 film Dracula, vampires are almost always depicted as having fangs. These fangs are sometimes retractable, only becoming visible when the vampire is about to feed.

[edit] Literature

[edit] Vampire fiction series

There are many series in vampire fiction. They tend to either take the form of direct sequels (or prequels) to the first book published or detail the ongoing adventures of particular characters.

  • Fred Saberhagen's Vlad Tepes series:
    • The Dracula Tape (1975)
    • The Holmes-Dracula File (1978)
    • An Old Friend of the Family (1979)
    • Thorn (1980)
    • Dominion (1982)
    • A Matter of Taste (1990)
    • A Question of Time (1992)
    • Seance for a Vampire (1994)
    • A Sharpness on the Neck (1996)
    • The Vlad Tapes (2000)
  • Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series:
    • Interview with the Vampire (1976)
    • The Vampire Lestat (1985)
    • The Queen of the Damned (1988)
    • The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)
    • Memnoch the Devil (1995)
    • The Vampire Armand (1998)
    • Merrick (2000)
    • Blood and Gold (2001)
    • Blackwood Farm (2002)
    • Blood Canticle (2003)
  • Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint-Germain series:
    • Hotel Transylvania (1978)
    • The Palace (1978)
    • Blood Games (1980)
    • Path of the Eclipse (1981)
    • Tempting Fate (1981)
    • The Saint-Germain Chronicles (1983)
    • Darker Jewels (1993)
    • Better in the Dark (1993)
    • Mansions of Darkness (1996)
    • Writ in Blood (1997)
    • Blood Roses (1998)
    • Communion Blood (1999)
    • Come Twilight (2000)
    • A Feast in Exile (2001)
    • Night Blooming (2002)
    • Midnight Harvest (2003)
    • Dark of the Sun (2004)
    • States of Grace (2005)
    • Roman Dusk (2006)
  • Whitley Strieber's Hunger series:
    • The Hunger (1980)
    • The Last Vampire (2001)
    • Lilith's Dream: A Tale of the Vampire Life (2002)
  • Brian Lumley's Necroscope series:
    • Necroscope (1986)
    • Necroscope II: Wamphyri! (aka Necroscope II:Vamphyri!) (1988)
    • The Source: Necroscope III (1989)
    • Deadspeak: Necroscope IV (1990)
    • Deadspawn: Necroscope V (1991)
    • Necroscope: The Lost Years (1995)
    • Necroscope The Lost Years: Volume II (aka Necroscope: Resurgence) (1996)
    • Invaders (1999)
    • Defilers: Necroscope (2000)
    • Avengers: Necroscope (2001)
    • Harry Keogh: Necroscope and Other Heroes (2003)
    • The Touch (2006)
  • Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series:
    • Anno Dracula (1992)
    • The Bloody Red Baron (1995)
    • Judgment of Tears (aka Dracula Cha Cha Cha) (1998)
  • Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series:
    • Guilty Pleasures (1993)
    • The Laughing Corpse (1994)
    • Circus of the Damned (1995)
    • The Lunatic Cafe (1996)
    • Bloody Bones (1996)
    • Club Vampyre (omnibus) (1997)
    • The Killing Dance (1997)
    • The Midnight Cafe (omnibus) (1997)
    • Black Moon Inn (omnibus) (1998)
    • Burnt Offerings (1998)
    • Blue Moon (1998)
    • Obsidian Butterfly (2000)
    • Narcissus in Chains (2001)
    • Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter Set (omnibus) (2003)
    • Cerulean Sins (2003)
    • Incubus Dreams (2004)
    • Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Omnibus (omnibus) (2005)
    • Nightshade Tavern (omnibus) (2005)
    • Micah (2006)
    • Danse Macabre (2006)
  • Christine Feehan's Dark series:
    • Dark Prince (1999)
    • Dark Desire (1999)
    • Dark Gold (2000)
    • Dark Magic (2000)
    • Dark Challenge (2000)
    • Dark Fire (2001)
    • After Twilight ("Dark Dream") with Amanda Ashley and Ronda Thompson (2001)
    • Dark Legend (2001)
    • Dark Guardian (2002)
    • Dark Symphony (2003)
    • The Only One ("Dark Descent") with Susan Grant and Susan Squires (2003)
    • Dark Melody (2003)
    • Dark Destiny (2004)
    • Hot Blooded ("Dark Hunger") with Emma Holly, Angela Knight and Maggie Shayne (2004)
    • Dark Secret (2005)
    • Dark Demon (2006)
    • Dark Celebration: A Carpathian Reunion (2006)
  • Gene Wolfe's Urth: Book of the Short Sun trilogy:
    • On Blue's Waters (1999)
    • In Green's Jungles (2000)
    • Return to the Whorl (2001)
  • Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files series:
    • Storm Front (2000)
    • Fool Moon (2000)
    • Grave Peril (2001)
    • Summer Knight (2002)
    • Death Masks (2003)
    • Blood Rites (2004)
    • Dead Beat (2005)
    • Proven Guilty (2006)
    • White Night (2007)
  • E. E. Knight's Vampire Earth series:
    • Way of the Wolf (2001)
    • Choice of the Cat (2004)
    • Tale of the Thunderbolt (2005)
    • Valentine's Rising (2005)
    • Valentine's Exile (2006)
  • Karen Koehler's Slayer series:
    • Slayer (2001)
    • Black Miracles (2002)
    • Stigmata (2003)
  • Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series:
    • Twilight (October 2005)
    • New Moon (August 2006)
    • Eclipse (October 2007)
    • Midnight Sun (in development)
  • Maggie Shayne's Wings in the Night series
    • Twilight Phantasie (1993)
    • Twilight Memories (1994)
    • Twilight Illusions (1995)
    • Beyond Twilight (1995)
    • Born in Twilight (1997)
    • Twilight Vows (1998)
    • Twilight Hunger (2002)
    • Embrace the Twilight (2003)
    • Run From Twilight (2003)
    • Edge of Twilight (2004)
    • Blue Twilight (2005)
    • Prince of Twilight (2006)

[edit] Films and television

Vampires have been a film staple since the silent days. The Vampire (film) (1913, directed by Robert G. Vignola), also co-written by Vignola, is the earliest vampire film. The landmark Nosferatu (1922 Germany, directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau) was an unlicensed version of Dracula based so closely on Bram Stoker's Dracula, the estate sued and won, with all copies being destroyed. (It would be painstakingly restored in 1994 by a team of European scholars from the five surviving prints.) By 2005, Dracula had been the subject of more films than any other fictional character.

The treatment of vampires has been kaleidoscopic. It has been comedic, including Old Dracula (1974 UK, directed by Clive Donner) featuring David Niven as a lovelorn Drac, Love at First Bite (1979 USA) featuring George Hamilton and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995 USA, directed by Mel Brooks) with Canadian Leslie Nielsen giving it a comic twist, to absurd, with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Vampirism has changed from embodied evil in Dracula to a kind of virus in David Cronenberg's Rabid (1976 Canada) and Red-Blooded American Girl (1990 Canada, directed by David Blyth). It got a science fiction spin in The Last Man on Earth (Italy 1964, directed by Ubaldo Ragona) and The Omega Man (1971 USA, directed by Boris Sagal), both based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend (writing as Logan Swanson), the product of a biological war. Race has not been excluded, either, as exemplified by the blaxploitation picture Blacula (1972 USA, directed by William Crain) and several sequels.

Roman Polanski made his own vampire movie with The Fearless Vampire Killers too.

Killing vampires has changed, too. Where Abraham Van Helsing relied on a stake through the heart, in Vampire$ (1997 USA, directed by John Carpenter), Jack Crow (James Woods) has a heavily-armed squad of vampire hunters, and in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992 USA, directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui), writer Joss Whedon (who created TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spinoff Angel) attached The Slayer, Buffy Summers (Kristy Swanson in the film, Sarah Michelle Gellar in the TV series), to a network of Watchers and mystically endowed her with superhuman powers.

Murnau's Nosferatu featured a vampire (portrayed by Max Schrek) that was ancient-looking and ugly, similar to the vampires of European folklore. The vampire was transformed from a creature of disgust and fear into an object of lust, in such films as Camilla (released as La Maldicion De Los Karnstein, 1963), Daughters of Darkness (released as Children Of The Night, 1971), Dracula (1979), and Once Bitten (1985), for just a few examples. Delphine Seyrig, Frank Langella, or Lauren Hutton could hardly be called ugly. Even X-rated films (such as 1978’s Dracula Sucks and 1999's Hot Vampire Nights) have used vampire themes.

In 2002, Shadow of the Vampire (2000 UK/USA/Luxembourg, directed by E. Elias Merhige) starred Willem Dafoe as leading man Max Schrek, playing an actual vampire, and John Malkovich as a harassed Murnau. Dafoe's character is the ugly, disgusting creature of the original Nosferatu.

A 1998 UK television drama called Ultraviolet centres around vampires and a fictional British governmental agency which both keeps their existence secret and seeks to destroy them.

In 2006, the TV show Supernatural occasionally sees the two brothers meeting vampires. Their father's mentor was a vampire hunter, and was killed by "old friends". Sam and Dean hunt down the vampires as they have in their possession a gun which could kill the thing they're really after.

[edit] Dracula and his legacy

By far, the most well-known and popular vampire in the movies is Dracula. An amazing number of movies have been filmed over the years depicting the evil count, some of which are ranked among the greatest depictions of vampires on film. Dracula has over 160 film representations making him the most frequently portrayed character in horror films; he has the second-highest number of movie appearances overall, following only Sherlock Holmes.

[edit] Other Vampires on movies and television

[edit] Other media

Video game series featuring vampires primarily use Dracula or Dracula-inspired characters. Konami's Castlevania series is the longest running series which uses the Dracula legend, though its writers have made their own alterations to the legend. An exception to this trend is the Legacy of Kain video game series, which features vampires set in an entirely fictional world called Nosgoth.

Other vampires seen in games include:

  • The Elder Scrolls game series involves vampires created by demon lord. They have all the typical attributes, but some (though not all) can walk in sunlight if they have fed on a victim.
  • In the tabletop wargame Warhammer Fantasy: Vampire Counts are one of the playable forces.
  • Role-playing games such as Vampire: The Masquerade (1992), in which the participants play the roles of fictional vampires (for specifics, see vampires in the World of Darkness).
  • The Darkstalkers (1994) fighting game series (known as Vampire Savior in Japan) features a vampire along with other mythological and horror-themed characters.
  • Shadowrun features vampires whose existence is explained by a resurgance of the Human Meta-Human Vampiric Virus. As such, the afflicted are not undead, but instead are still alive but radically changed by the retrovirus. They normally do not suffer from the supernatural limitations such as crosses, but still are vulnerable to sunlight.
  • The Sims 2: Nightlife, the second expansion pack for popular series The Sims 2, introduces vampires to the game. These vampires in this game follow many fictional conventions, such sleeping in ornate coffins, wearing gothic clothing, and being able to transform into bats. Vampirism can be spread between game characters through biting. If caught outside during the day, a Sim Vampire's will soon die.
  • The video game series Castlevania establishes a new origin for Dracula and chronicles the neverending struggle between him and the Belmont clan of vampire hunters stretching from the 11th century all the way to the 21st century.
  • The video game series Shadow Hearts have four known vampires (Three playable) in the games (though hardly stereotypical).

In addition to gaming, vampires populate other popular media such as graphic novels, comics, theater, and musicals:

[edit] References

  • Christopher Frayling (1992) Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula (1992) ISBN 0-571-16792-6
  • Freeland, Cynthia A. (2000) The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror. Westview Press.
  • Holte, James Craig. (1997) Dracula in the Dark: The Dracula Film Adaptations. Greenwood Press.
  • Leatherdale, C. (1993) Dracula: The Novel and the Legend. Desert Island Books.
  • Melton, J. Gordon. (1999) The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead. Visible Ink Press.

[edit] External links

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