Vampires and Vampire Fiction

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Matthew Gibson (University of Macau)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.04: French Writing and Culture: Eighteenth-Century and the Enlightenment, 1700-1800.
Vol. editors: Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Jenny Mander (University of Cambridge), Síofra Pierse (University College Dublin), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1750-2005

Places

France (Location)
Germany (Location)
United Kingdom (Location)

Genres and Modes

Horror
Prose Fiction Narrative

The blood-sucking Count Dracula, fearful of crucifixes and garlic and incapable of bearing daylight or mirrors, has impressed the archetypal image of the vampire upon the minds of twentieth-century readers and film-goers. While the vampire is a recognisable figure, it enjoyed a long and slightly nebulous gestation, mainly in Eastern Europe, before Stoker’s Dracula.

Origins

James Twitchell suggests that the idea of the vampire may well be indebted to the Hindu goddess Kali, who sucks the blood of the living, and was transported by the Magyars and Huns who invaded Eastern Europe in the first millennium AD. However, there are certainly several vampiric figures to be found in classical literature. Most notably there …

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3914 words

Citation: Gibson, Matthew. "Vampires and Vampire Fiction". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 June 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1670, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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