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Zhang Huaming

The vampire, or for that matter any bloodsucking monster, never had the success in Northern Europe that he had in the Mediterranean and Balkan countries. While other monsters fared well in English and Germanic literature, the blood-drinkers were neglected only occasionally being referred to in such early ballads as “Margaret’s Ghost,” “Sweet William’s Ghost,” “Fair Margeret and Sweet William’s Grave,” and then only in the most elliptical terms.” Oddly enough, however, the motif of a superhuman demon who steals about at night and sucks the blood of the people may play an important role in the first of all English masterpiece, Beowulf. For here the monster Grendel, with its “horrible fierce eyes” and blood lust, seems to derives in part from some folk belief that perhaps sprouted from the vampire story.

From the 8^th to the 12^th centuries, there was little interest in describing the vampire in any imaginary literature. In the 12^th century, Walter Map collected superstitions and gossip for his De nugis curialium distinctions quinqui. Also in the 12^th century William of Newbury chronicled the history of the Sanguisugae, or human bloodsuckers, in his Historia Rerum Anglicarum.

The vampire had a long period of stony sleep from the 12^th to the 18^th century ( James B. Twitchell.1987. 40). In the 18^th century, it first emerged from German, which is considered as the predecessor of English literary vampire, treatises were written to explain the vampire as a personification of demonic energies on earth. Those works kindled considerable scholarly interests which, in turn, were exploited by the German poets, who recognized the artistic potential of vampirism. Heinrich August Ossenfelder wrote “the Vampire” (1748), Gottfried August Bürger wrote “Lenore” (1773), Goethe wrote “The Bride of Corinth” (1797). Among these works, “Lenore” was the most influential for the English poets. All the English Romantics were familiar with it.

The first mention of vampires in English literature appears in Robert Southey's “Thalaba the Destroyer” (1797). It has been argued that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem “Christabel” has influenced the development of vampire fiction.

In 19^th century, the influential works include the dreadful Varney the Vampire (1847); Sheridan Le Fanu's tale of a lesbian vampire, Carmilla (1872) and the masterpiece of the genre: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897).

In later years, vampire stories have gone beyond the traditional Gothic stories and diversified into areas of crime, fantasy, science fiction or even chick-lit. Except for the typical fanged revenants, newer representations include aliens and even plants with vampiric abilities. Others feed on energy rather than blood.

1. James B. Twitchell. The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature. Duke University Press, 1987.

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_literature

 

Read more:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/4999441/Lesbian-vampires-will-never-die.html

 

Bio:

My name is Zhang Huaming, and I also have an English name, Perry. In the year 1997, I graduated in a normal school in Gan Su, China, and became a high school English teacher. After 7 years of teaching, I went to Northwest Normal University to have my further education, majored in English, and got a Bachelor's Degree in 2006. In the same year, I passed the post-graduate exams in Northwest Normal University and will get my M. A in June, 2009. My major is English Language and Literature, orientation being English Literature. Meanwhile I have been teaching in several colleges as an external lecturer for 3 years.

http://tianyalit.blogspot.com/

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