Keeping the Vampire Alive: Image and Textual Transformations
CHAPTER I: IMAGE TRANSFORMATIONS
The first aspect of what keeps the vampire alive in the popular consciousness is the metamorphic qualities of its image. For this century, a popular and persistent image of the vampire is as a tall, anaemic, dark-haired, widow-peaked man with fangs as distinct as a wolf’s and a cape billowing behind him - and may be accompanied by the facial image of Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Gary Oldman, or Tom Cruise: charismatic actors (amongst many) who played the part of the vampire so convincingly that they have left a permanent snapshot in many people’s minds when the word “vampire” is spoken - yet this is only one of the many visual descriptions of a vampire’s appearance and proves how deceptive securing a fixed image really is.
Romanic folklore depicts vampires as a shape-shifting incubus, able to take on the appearance of all nocturnal creatures, such as bats, wolves, or owls, or of hideous, demonic aspect when appearing in a human form. Lord Byron’s poetic imagery in The Giaour (1813) tells of a self-imposed outcast who cannot forget his past deeds in the Levant and draws upon earlier folkloric imagery to depict the Giaour’s (infidel’s) suffering, whilst his fragmentary story concerning an aristocrat, Augustus Darvell, travelling in the orient, became the basis for John Polidori’s creation, Lord Ruthven.
Incidentally, the fragmentary story concerning Augustus Darvell was Byron’s contribution to the famous ghost story competition at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in 1816, where, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley and John Polidori (who was Byron’s personal physician at the time) also attended. Byron’s fragment provided the basis for Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819), whilst the ghost competition provided the spur for the creation of Mary Shelley’s enduring classic Frankenstein - all in all - a very fruitful time as a contribution to the realms of literary history. “Polidori’s aristocratic vampire was the product of his antagonistic relationship with his former employee, Byron, and is descriptively and characteristically based on Byron and Byron’s wild lifestyle.” (Voller 1) Polidori tellingly describes his vampire as “a seductive socialite possessing a developed intellect and preternatural charm, as well as physical attraction” (Polidori 2) - yet, as the story shows, a being that causes the utmost misery to the mortal travelling companions that he chooses to accompany him - which in turn reveals plenty about Polidori’s view of Byron.
Unfortunately for Polidori, although the tale is now recognized as a literary classic, the public didn’t give him the kind of recognition that may have helped him to exercise his personal demons concerning his (self-perceived) inadequate medical and literary endeavours; “two years after the publication of The Vampyre, Polidori took poison and died.” (McNally; Florescu 143)
Sample of MA Thesis © Marcus Coates