Vampires!

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Vampires!

• Ah! The Children of the Night.
• What music they make!

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Vampires

• Vampires have their origins in ancient legends
  about death and resurrection
• Ancient Egyptian legends talk of the resurrection
  of Horus, and describe the means of his
  re-animation.
• Modern vampire legends come to us from the
  Balkans.

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Land of the undead

• Slavic peoples begin migrating into the Balkan
  region in the 7th and 8th centuries, from other
  parts of eastern Europe.
• They bring with them traditions and folklore
  about unclean spirits, revenants and sacrificial
  ceremonies.
• They encounter Christianity and urban
  civilization in the form of the Byzantine Empire.

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St. George and the Dragon
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Condemning the Pagan

• The Orthodox Church is established in the
  Balkans, and earlier customs are condemned as the
  work of the devil.
• Some peasants are accused of continuing ancient
  practices, or of being in league with the dark
  arts

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Undead or just sick?

• In part, vampire legends come from notions about
  diseases. Lacking a germ theory, peasants
  speculate that a disease that slowly stalks
  several villagers is the work of a single evil
  agent the vampire.
• The Greek notion of the vampire, or vyrkolakos,
  is of an evil spirit inhabiting dead bodies that
  refuse to decompose.

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Watch out Linus!

• Gypsy legends of this region tell of parasitical
  forces at work in the garden. Vampire cucumbers.
  Squashes, beets and other vegetables come alive
  at night to feast on their brethren!
• Great Pumpkin or Dracula?

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Vlad the Impaler

• In 1453, Constantinople falls to the Ottoman
  Empire led by Sultan Mehmet II.
• Christian resistance against the Ottoman advance
  is led by Wallachian and Hungarian lords.

• Vlad Dracul, also known as The Dragon or Vlad
  the Impaler, rules from 1462 to 1476, and uses
  unspeakable cruelty against the invading Turk.

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The Charmer

• Does his power to
• terrorize come from a
• blend of cultures and a
• mix of civilization and
• savagery? How far
• are we from Vlad?

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Vlad the Impaler Not so nice!

• It is said that Vlad lived among the Ottomans for
  a time, and learned cruel customs like impalement
  from them.
• He may have murdered as many as 50,000 of his own
  people in campaigns against the Turks.
• His reputation lived on after his death

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Literature

• In 1819, John Polidori publishes The Vampyre, the
  first popular vampire novel. Polidori was Lord
  Byrons personal physician!
• Polidori wrote The Vampyre after spending a
  holiday with Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein
• In 1897, Bram Stoker writes Dracula, the
  definitive vampire novel.

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• Conjure up your
• deepest, darkest
• fear now call
• That fear to life

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The Romantic Vampire

• Does the vampire fear
• well up from the same
• Romantic sources as the
• works of Shelley and
• Byron?

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The rules of the vampire

• Fear of sunlight
• The cross
• The stake
• Burning
• Garlic
• Hospitality

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Powers

• Shape-changing
• Command of night creatures
• Mesmerism
• The bite of the vampire
• Blood drinking

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Nosferatu, 1922
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The Unknown

• Western civilization tends to fear that which is
  unknown.
• The vampire is a convenient symbol for that which
  we fear. We imprint all kinds of fears into this
  form.
• For example, Nazi imagery is full of vampire
  references

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Midnight Visitors