For almost 200 years, 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 19th 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 editors 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 novel, Dracula, published in 1897.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
19th-century Carmilla, and moving to vampiresses in 20th-century
film, literature and television series. Scientific explanations for
vampires and werewolves constitute another section of the book,
including 18th-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.
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