RSSS 315 Tier 2: Fifth Week Thursday

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RSSS 315 (Tier 2) Fifth Week (Thursday)

• Vampires and Werewolves Slavic Folklore in Our
  Culture

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News

• Study Guide (possible revisions up to midnight,
  Sunday)
• A Musical Interlude

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Gothic Rock
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Some final remarks about Gogol

• His humor
• Should we take Viy seriously?

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Notes on Orthodoxy

• Prominence of icons
• Icon frame (iconostasis)
• Cupolas

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Types of vampires

• Folkloric supernatural characteristics, cultural
  variation
• Psychotic person with mental illness criminally
  attacks victims in the manner of Stokers Dracula
• Psychic people who feed on others emotionally
• Literary Stoker has the paradigm

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Generalizations

• Many other vampires before Stokers
• Goethe, Burger, Byron, Polidori, Gogol
• RomanticGothic
• Folk stories and legends feed literary works
• Historical figures feed both folk stories and
  literary works

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Dealing with Vampires

• Christian and pagan means
• Rituals communion (wafers and wine)
• Symbols crucifixes, holy water
• Circles and seeds and garlic

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Evidence of Bogomilism

• Limited power of Christian symbols
• Power of Dracula himself (and evil)
• References to the dark forces

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Story vs. Film

• Erotic elements stronger
• Vampire elements stronger

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Gothic features

• Mystery, gloom, fog, night, storm
• Desolation, isolation
• Animals wolves, bats
• Distant past (unforgotten) sense of nostalgia
• Old castles, mansions, graveyards, churches
  (cobwebs, spiders)
• Mysterious sounds (howling, flapping, scratching)
• Mysterious figures, secrets, threat of violence
• Dark colors (black), blood, pale features

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Background for Stoker

• Biography 1847-1912
• Irish college civil servant, journalist, drama
  critic
• Personal secretary to Henry Irving (actor) in
  England
• Married, one child
• Wrote novels and short stories (18 books)
• Dracula 1897 best known

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Chapter One

• Obviously researched
• Old names Harker does research before leaving
• Destination
• Very precisely dated diary entries (in
  shorthand!)
• Travel early warnings of trouble (peasants
  worried about him)
• Blue flame everywhere howling of dogs

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Chapter Two

• Harker meets Dracula
• What does Dracula look like? Describe him!
• One person show
• Entrapmentwhy?
• Ethnographic detail yields to focus on castle and
  surroundings

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Vampire Epidemics 17th and 18th Centuries

• Hungary?
• South Slavic areas?
• Romania and Albania?

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Key Works

• Dom Augustin Calmet 16721757
• French biblical scholar, a Benedictine abbot at
  Nancy and Sens
• Major work Dissertations sur les Apparitions
  des Anges, des Démons et des Esprits et sur les
  revenants et vampires de Hongrie, de Bohême, de
  Moravie, e de Silésie, Paris, 1740

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More Examples from Life (Serbia)

• Arnold Paul (Paole) from Medvedja (Kosovo) 1732
• Radojevo, Serbia 1732
• Petar Plogojovic (KisilovaKisljevo, Serbia) 1736
• Sarbanovac (Zajecar), Serbia 1839
• Beograd, 1923-4

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The point?

• Sets the atmosphere
• Indicates predisposition to believe
• Encourages storytelling

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Literature into Film Challenges

• Background information
• Imagery
• Suggestiveness
• Inner dialogue, monologue

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Nosferatu

• Meaning of the term
• Why this title?
• Murnau
• Schreck and Kinski