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Vampire literature

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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. Myths and legends of blood-imbibing creatures capable of transmogrification predate the novel form. The immediate antecedent of Dracula is Sheridan le Fanu's classic of the genre, Carmilla. This in turn owes more than a little to John William Polidori's The Vampyre; this was contemporaneous to Lord Byron's poem The Giaour, which also deals with the subject. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Christabel (written between 1697 and 1701, but not published until 1816) does not involve blood-drinking, but can easily be viewed as a "vampire tale".

Lord Byron introduced many common elements of the vampire theme to Western literature in his epic poem The Giaour (1813). These include the combination of horror and lust that the vampire feels and the concept of the undead passing its inheritance to the living (Note: In the following excerpt, corse is "corpse"):

File:ByronAlban.jpg
Lord Byron in Greek national Costume


But thou, false Infidel! shalt writhe
Beneath avenging Monkir's scythe;
And from its torment 'scape alone
To wander round lost Eblis' throne;
And fire unquenched, unquenchable,
Around, within, thy heart shall dwell;
Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell
The tortures of that inward hell!



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's own wild life became the model for the protagonist Lord Ruthven in the first vampire novel, The Vampyre (1819) by John William Polidori. 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 novel 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.

Bram Stoker's Dracula 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 England where tuberculosis and syphilis were common.

Dracula appears to be based at least partially on legends about a real person, Vlad Ţepeş (Vlad the Impaler), a notorious Wallachian (Romanian) prince of the 15th century known also as Vlad III Dracula.

File:DraculaLugosi1931Poster.jpg
Filmgoers met Dracula (Bela Lugosi) in 1931 in a landmark vampire film.

Stoker also probably derived inspiration from Irish myths of blood-sucking creatures. He also was almost certainly 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.

Much 20th-century vampire fiction draws heavily on Stoker's formulation; early films such as Nosferatu and those featuring Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee are examples of this. Nosferatu, in fact, was clearly based on Dracula, and 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 other works of vampire fiction do not feature Dracula as a character, there is typically a clear inspiration from Stoker, reflected in a fascination with sex and wealth, as well as overwhelmingly frequent use of Gothic settings and iconography. A contemporary descendant is the series of novels by Anne Rice, the most popular in a genre of modern stories that use vampires as their (sometimes sympathetic) protagonists.

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 cannabalistic/bloodsucking beings changed the genre forever. One man is the sole survivor of a pandemic of a bacterium that causes vampirism. Continually, 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, followed by a variety of contemporary authors.

Literature

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 an SF 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.

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 (magnificently portrayed by Max Schrek) was ancient-looking and ugly, as he was expected to be at that time. 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.

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.

Other movies and television

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:

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

Sources

  • Christopher Frayling - Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula (1992) ISBN 0571167926
  • Holte, James Craig. - Dracula in the Dark: The Dracula Film Adaptations. Greenwood Press, 1997.
  • Freeland, Cynthia A. - The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror. Westview Press, 2000.
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