Old School Vampires, Meet the Shiny New Ones...
And More
They are everywhere. I don’t mean
in your closet or under the bed or lurking in your high school cafeteria but in
movies, TV and literature. Some people might be inclined to say that people are
more obsessed with vampires than ever, but this is not the first time that
vampires and the supernatural have had a significant place in popular culture.
Because before Edward and Bella fell in love, in fact before Edward was even
fictionally born, stories of vampires and the supernatural were shocking gentlemen and ladies alike during the 19th
century through Gothic literature.
We have always been fascinated by ghost stories, but during the Gothic period, the dark and macabre was high fashion. I would go as far as to say that, at least in the world of YA, we are experiencing a Gothic revival, or perhaps more accurately, a Gothic reboot. For while the fascination is the same, the vampire obsession then and now has taken fans down different paths.
We have always been fascinated by ghost stories, but during the Gothic period, the dark and macabre was high fashion. I would go as far as to say that, at least in the world of YA, we are experiencing a Gothic revival, or perhaps more accurately, a Gothic reboot. For while the fascination is the same, the vampire obsession then and now has taken fans down different paths.
Perhaps the most beloved and well
known Gothic novel is the seminal vampire story, Dracula. The deeply evil and dangerous title character is actually
in the book surprisingly little. Lucy and Mina are being possessed and dying at
the hands of Dracula, but no one can find him. His lack of physical presence
makes him terrifying and that’s the point, to frighten. Dracula sold his soul
to the devil long ago and is painted as an unrelenting tour-de-force of evil.
His only real attributes are ambition and hunger; his actions always seek to
satisfy one or the other.
The portrait of the vampire today
is an entirely different one, mostly because the majority of modern portrayals
have a human side. Take (for the sake of consistency) Twilight’s Edward Cullen.
He views his vampirism as a curse to some extent; never growing old and having
to feed on humans or curb his cravings, and so on. He can fall in love,
something Bram Stoker’s Dracula would never have been allowed. Also, with
modern vampire novels, the (in most cases) voracious sexuality of vampires is able
to be explored extensively. Although in Bram Stoker’s novel, it is implied that
Dracula (as a cloud of smoke, no less) violated or raped both Lucy and Mina, it
does take some reading between the lines to get to it. With our rebooted
vampire, sex is brought out in the open, which may be, ultimately, why the
current craze of vampirism has been so strong.
What it really comes down to is a
difference in the definition of romance. The gothic and the romantic would seem
to be inherently linked, but as the vernacular for romance has changed, so too
has its relationship to Gothic stories, like those about vampires. The original
Gothic and the Romantic movements were parallels, but then a romantic tale was either
was wild, adventurous, or filled the reader with a deep sense of awe and
melancholy. Bram stoker’s Dracula fits perfectly into this world. Our modern
idea of romance has morphed into the acts of love and all that that entails. Edward
Cullen fits undeniably into this ideal (an even for some, defines it). Someday,
possibly soon, our current obsession with vampires will fade, but it won’t ever
die.
Some Notables in the Vampire
Craze
-The Sookie Stackhouse (aka Southern Vampires) Series by Charlaine
Harris (the source material for True Blood)
- The Vampire Diaries Series by L.J. Smith (source material for The
Vampire Diaries TV series)
-Bloodlines Series by Richelle Mead
-Vampire Academy Series by Richelle Mead
Top 10 Vampire Novels according to the Guardian:
By Meaghan O'Brien
