It seems that there has always been a somewhat morbid fascination with the underworld. Witches, demons and werewolves have long been the focus of man’s interest. Perhaps it is the same compulsion which leads people who are of a religious persuasion to believe in the concept of good and evil, while someone wise once claimed that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
So if we take the assumption then that there is the existence of good force, of positive light and energy, then there must also therefore be the opposing existence of negative and malevolent force and energy. One only needs to travel back to the worlds of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans to see that from the time man has been able to write down and commit his thoughts and feelings to paper and transform these thoughts and feelings into some kind of rational process, that there has been a state of what we can define in present time as good and evil, heaven and hell and of course the existence of agents of both. Whether it is the ancient Greek version of Hades and the Underworld, or Christianity and Islam’s concept of Heaven and Hell, it seems that as the human race, there has always been the need to define, explain and understand things as either one or the other.
Enter the (anti) hero of some of the most seductive and alluring literature to have been written. The Vampire; he (or she) who sucks blood, sleeps in a coffin and who is usually broody and mysterious has long since been the subject of both literary and folkloric fascination. Essentially perceived and presented as evil, it could be suggested that what makes the vampire as a being ultimately so seductive is that there is always that very small, almost unperceivable element of human feeling.
There has never quite been a figure or being who is quite like the vampire, especially in the world of literature. While the teenage world of today is rather taken with the Twilight series, one cannot ever forget the legendary Vampire Chronicles from epic gothic author, Anne Rice who gave us the unforgettable Louis, Lestat and Armand, not to mention a host of other, secondary underworld characters.
Even if one has never read the Vampire Chronicles, their cinematic representations are equally seductive and even if the casting process with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt’s portrayals were perhaps a little superficial for die-hard Rice admirers, there is no doubt that the characters appeal to our own ‘dark sides’ somewhat.
The literary genre of portraying vampires started back in 1748 in the poem ‘The Vampire’ by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, but the real launch of the genre, especially as the subject of a novel can be attributed to John Polidori who wrote the first piece of prose fiction called ‘The Vampyre’ in 1819. Initially, there was some confusion as the work was originally attributed to Polidori’s employer, Lord Byron, himself a renowned literary figure.
The book was actually written about the same time as perhaps the most prolific horror story ever written, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, both of which were as a result of a friendly ‘horror-story’ writing competition between some of the British Romantic Movement’s best known members.
The physical origins of vampires can almost certainly be traced to Medieval Eastern Europe, conveniently also the setting of the most famous vampire book ever to have been written, Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.
One of the earliest written examples of vampiric activity comes from the region of Istria, which can be found in modern day Croatia. Written in 1672, apparently peasants claimed that their local vampire, former peasant Giure Grando, who had died in 1656, rose from the dead and was drinking villagers’ blood while also sexually harassing his widow. According to custom, a stake was driven through his heart, although this was ineffective as his corpse was subsequently beheaded. The eighteenth century in Europe was riddled with vampire sightings and there was a frenzy of sorts of people being killed with the stake driven through their hearts and graves being opened just to make sure the dead were really dead. At one point in the Eastern European regions, government officials were even appointed to find and destroy all vampires; in essence a witch hunt, but these perpetrators weren’t burnt at the stake, they were skewered.
The obsession with vampires reached its peak during the Age of Enlightenment, which although lead to a suppression and elimination of most myths and legends, the belief in vampires jumped somewhat out of control with Europe experiencing a frenzy of almost mass hysteria. Even famous French philosopher Voltaire wrote in his book, ‘Philosophical Dictionary’ that “these vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at the throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale and fell into consumption while the sucking corpses grew fat, rosy and enjoyed an excellent appetite.”
The hysteria eventually ended when science overtook fantasy and people generally stopped believing in the existence of the undead. Much like werewolves, demons and malevolent spirits though, surely there will always be an element of uncertainty as to whether these beings actually existed or have evolved and grown as figments of man’s creative mind?
Would it not make sense to think that if there is a concept of good and evil, of a positive and negative energy that maybe both energies have had their specific agents on earth to claim victory for each side? And while vampires may have been very frightening entities in medieval times, isn’t there a tiny part of the human mind and psyche now, when modern-day literary and cinematic representations portray the creatures as seductive, alluring and mysterious that could be allowed to wonder into the possibility that maybe, just maybe vampires could be a representation of what the human being could actually be allowed to become if the dark side was allowed just a little bit of light.
Weight for me tomorrow. Paul
Paul Lambis is the author of “Where is Home?” – A journey of hilarious contrasts.
For more information on Paul Lambis, and to order his book online,
visit www.paul-lambis.com
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