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Published in 1897 by Irish writer
Bram Stoker, the novel Dracula, translated into
many languages including Irish, has never been out of
print. The figure of Count Dracula has dominated
twentieth-century culture, and the novel has inspired
over 700 films. It is astonishing that a single novel
should have become such a phenomenon.
Bram Stoker did not invent the
vampire. Vampires appear in the folklore and legends of
many cultures dating back to ancient times. Interest in
vampires within the English-speaking world can be traced
back to 1732, when the word «vampyre» first
appeared in this language. The occasion was a wave of
vampire sightings reported and documented in several
parts of Central and Eastern Europe and eventually
reported in the British press.
The attention given to vampirism
coincided with a rising interest in Gothic literature,
first in Germany and later (during the last decades of
the eighteenth century) in England, where Gothic writers
soon adopted the vampire. The first in English
literature to do so were poets, but the most important
contribution came from an unlikely source: Lord Byron’s
personal physician, John Polidori. He wrote the first
piece of vampire fiction in the English language.
Interest in vampire literature
continued through the nineteenth century with the
appearance of several short stories and novels, but it
was Dracula that became the yardstick for future
vampires. Bram Stoker combined several of the elements
of early vampire fiction with the results of research
into vampire folklore —and added a few of his own.
Although Stoker had never visited Transylvania, his
descriptions of that enchantingly beautiful Eastern
European region are astonishingly vivid. Because of his
novel and the proliferation of Dracula movies, the
Dracula myth became firmly established.
What about the name Dracula?
Contrary to popular opinion, Bram Stoker knew very
little about the real Dracula. All we know for sure is
that he found the name Dracula in an obscure
history book he borrowed from the public library in the
English seaside resort of Whitby where he was spending a
summer vacation in 1890. He was already working on a
vampire novel, and had even selected a name for his
Count: Vampyr. Then he saw the name Dracula
with a footnote that suggested it came from a
Romanian word for devil. As this suited Stoker’s
conception of his vampire, he appropriated the name, and
Dracula became a vampire. However, Stoker did not live
long enough to see the tremendous success of his novel.
The book that made Bram Stoker famous has eclipsed
Stoker himself and become undisputedly the world’s
eternal Gothic novel.
What is it about the vampire in
general and about Count Dracula in particular that
continues to fascinate? There is no simple answer, as
the appeal goes across the whole spectrum of human
interest. For some it is the seductive element, for
others it is the connection with the dark side of our
natures. The vampire symbolizes for many the breaking of
taboos, the challenge of authority, the fine line
between power and passion, and the search for
immortality and eternal youth. While Stoker’s Dracula
was the embodiment of evil, late 20th century
vampires have become more ambivalent creatures, a clear
reflection of the disappearing line between good and
evil in our increasingly secularized world. |
