The origins of the literary vampire / Heide Crawford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Crawford, Heide, 1966- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Vampires in literature.

German literature--History and criticism.

German literature.

Vampires--Europe, Central--History.

Vampires.

History.

Central Europe.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

xviii, 129 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2016]

Summary:

The long and distinguished tradition of the literary vampire began in Germany during the Age of Enlightenment. German literature was the first to adapt the vampire figure from central European folklore and superstition. Despite these origins, scholarly attention devoted to literary vampires has consistently focused on British and Fresh literature-notably Bram Stoker's Dracula-and the phenomenon of the vampire superstition in general. Although many illuminating studies have been written about pre-literary vampires, the story of the crucial moment of transition from folkloric figure to literary subject has not yet been told. In The Origins of the Literary Vampire, Heide Crawford redirects scholarly attention to the body of German poetry an prose where vampire folklore becomes vampire literature. This book focuses on the adaptation of the vampire superstition from central European folklore by German poets in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries for an audience that had become increasingly interested in superstition and occult phenomena. In addition, Grawford argues that the German poets who adapted this figure from superstition for their creative work immediately molded it into a metaphor for cultural anxieties and fears-a connection that would inspire horror literature in general and the traits of the literary vampire in particular for the nineteenth century and beyond. Tracing the eroticized and politicized application of the vampire, this volume answers three central questions: What are the origins of the literary vampire? How was the vampire of folklore and superstition adapted for literature? How did German poets contribute to the development of the vampire and Gothic horror literature? The Origins of the Literary Vampire will be of interest to scholars of German literature, horror fiction, and the supernatural, as well as fans of vampire literature. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: Germany's place in the history of the vampire in literature

The Habsburgs, vampires and scientific inquiry: the vampire's path to literature

The first vampire poems

The first German vampire stories

The development of a horror aesthetic by German poets.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Crawford, Heide, 1966- author. Origins of the literary vampire

ISBN:

9781442266742

1442266740

OCLC:

946160614