The vampire is a chimerical not-dead and not-alive creature who, following various folklores and popular superstitions, leaves the tomb to suck the blood of alive in order to drawing the vital force from it. The legend of the vampires draws its origins in old mythological traditions and one finds legendary beings equipped with characteristics of the vampires in all kinds of cultures throughout the world.

The vampire was popularized at the beginning of the 18th century and emerged more specifically in Eastern Europe, particularly in the Balkans. In these folk traditions, the vampires were depicts like ghosts in shroud who, visiting liked to them, caused dead and desolation in the vicinity. At the same time, the Benedictine French Augustin Calmet, describes it like a " returning in corps" , being thus distinguished from the immaterial ghosts (Phantom S or spirits).

The character more charismatic and sophisticated vampire of the modern fictions appeared with the publication in 1819 of the book The Vampyre of John Polidori whose alive hero was inspired by Lord Byron whose Polidori was the personal doctor. The book gained a great success but it is the work which Bram Stoker wrote in 1897, Dracula , which remains the quintessence of the kind, establishing an image of the always popular vampire nowadays in the works of fiction, even if it is rather distant from its folk ancestors of which it preserves only little original specificities.

The vampire in the History

The history of the vampire starts very early, but will find its apogee at the time of, where testimonys of vampires are done more.

Antiquity

The Bible already, by the means of the nécromancie, made allusions to the vampires.

In the ancient Greece, the shades of the kingdom of Hadès are fond of delicacies blood of the victims (cf Homère, Odyssée , X, 520-540, “Circé”). The Old ones feared the wandering on Earth if they were not buried by their family or their friends because the final rest came from the incineration, which explains the myth of Polynice. Aristée, Plato and Démocrite supported that the heart can remain near deaths private of burial. The hearts unhappy and wandering are then let attract by the odor of blood. One can refer to Porphyre of Tyr ( Of the sacrifices , CH. II “Of the true worship”). The soothsayers made use then of these hearts to guess the secrecies and treasures. Being informed of their presence, the men sought means to alleviate them or counter them. In Crete, according to Pausanias, one inserted in the head of some dead a nail. Ovide also will speak about the vampires. Théocrite notes also the empuse S (multiform spectra of the night being able to moult itself in unnamable monsters or creatures of dream, also called middle-aged lusts ).

In the Roman Empire, one finds the law Jus Pontificum according to which the bodies were not to be left without burial. Moreover, the tombs were protected from the robbers and enemies. The violations were regarded as sacrilege and were punished of death. One meets Lamia, a Goule necrophagous, queen of the Succube S devouring the fetuses and frightening the children the night (Horace, poetic Art , 340). De Lamia comes the Lamie S, more necrophagous than vampires: lascives, ondoyantes, serpentine, avid of indecent assault and death, with the feet of horse and the eyes of dragon. It attracted the men to devour them and can be connected with the succubes. One notes also the Stryge S, demons winged females provided with greenhouses, thus named because of their piercing cries, and the Omoscele S, demons with the feet of asses which attacked the stray travellers.

The Middle Ages and Modern times

At the 12th century, the vampires were supposed being so many in England which they were burned to calm popular passion. Herenberg quotes two cases in besides 1337 and 1347: supposed guilty of vampirism were impaled and burned. In the same way, at the 14th century, the epidemics of plagues are the occasion for the population (especially in Eastern Europe) of a true frenzy anti-vampire. One sees appearing at the 16th century, the first great figure of the vampirism: the Hungarian countess Erzsébet Báthory. In Moravie, the bishop of Olmütz, in front of the multiplication of the complaints of the villagers of the area, set up of the boards of inquiry. The first case of vampirism attached to a name and studied so much is little is that Michael Casparek, in 1718. Its case was the subject of an official investigation, in its small village of Liptov in Hungary. Unfortunately, very few data could arrive to us. The word “vampire” appears for the first time in 1725, when a report/ratio introduce to the exhumation of recently dead the Peter Plogojowitz a peasant Serbe, who still to date remains the most famous case of historical vampire in the world, after that of Arnold Paole, soldier and Austrian peasant died in 1726 and at the origin of two epidemics of “vampirism” of which the second, in January 1731, were the subject of a report/ratio given full details by the army medical officer Johann Flückinger, generally known under the title of Visum and Repertum, which was abundantly taken again, translated by Dom Calmet, and probably made to run even more ink than the case Plogojowitz (for the Serb ones, the most famous remainder however Sava Savanović). Previously, one spoke about “vampyr”. Another case of vampirism is that of Johannes Cuntius of Silesia.

The vampirism was for the Catholic church (and Dom Calmet in particular) a serious and political subject (with the manner of the Bête of Gévaudan). The hearts of deaths have three alternatives: Paradise, Hell or Purgatory. However the vampire is a death which is not found in any of these three categories, since it is a heart which wanders on Earth. Its simple existence thus calls into question the catholic dogma and thus the power of the Church.

The case Báthory

The countess Elizabeth Báthory is the historical example most known concerning the vampires. This Hungarian aristocrat of, would have killed between 100 and 600 young girls in order to bathe in their blood. She considered indeed that to bathe in the blood of young girls could allow to remain eternally young person. Although it does not present any sign characteristic of the vampires (it does not drink blood), it remains for much the incarnation on the aristocratic side of the vampire, contrary to other testimonys which, later, will relate to peasants.

The case Vlad Drăculea

It is often thought that Vlad III Drăculea, known as Ţepeş (Rumanian Empaleur), was a vampire. This prince of Valachie of the 15th century, whose reputation was sanguinary, inspired " much; Dracula" , a novel of fiction of Bram Stoker, which depicts a vampire in Transylvania and in the United Kingdom at the 19th century. Although it is not made mention, in a direct or indirect way, of Vlad Ţepeş, many people then made the bringing together, then the amalgam, between Dracula, the imaginary character of Stoker, and the historical Wallachian prince of the 15th century. The many recoveries arts person and cinematographic ended up making of Dracula a character of the world popular culture.

At our time

Nowadays, the vampirism is defined rather as a pathology concerned with psychiatry. The patient is convinced by autosuggestion that it is necessary for him to live during the night and to drink blood. The suffering patients of porphyrie are also very sensitive to the sun. In another kind, the vampirism belongs to the folklore of certain Gothic groups.

Faculties lent to the vampires of fictions

According to the myths, legends or authors, the vampire has of forces or different weaknesses. Thus, in the novel of Bram Stoker, faculties of Dracula are enumerated in a precise way by one of the characters, doctor Van Helsing:

It should be known that the nosferatu does not die, like the bee, once it made a victim. On the contrary, it only becomes stronger about it; and, more extremely, it is only more dangerous (...). It makes use of the nécromancie, art which, as the etymology of the word indicates it, consists in evoking deaths to guess the future, and all deaths of which it can approach are with its orders (...). It can, with however certain reserves, to appear where and when it wants and under one or the other form of its choice; it has even the capacity, to a certain extent, to make itself main of the elements: the storm, fog, thunder, and to be made obey lower creatures, such as the rat, the owl, the bat, the moth, the fox and the wolf; it can be done large and to reduce itself and, at certain times, it disappears exactly as if there did not exist any more.

The same character further specifies however several means are usable to eliminate the vampire:

He is prisoner, more than one man condemned to the galères, more than one insane locked up in a cottage. To go where it has desire is prohibited to him. He which is not a being according to nature, it must however obey some of its laws - why, we do not know anything of it. All the doors are not open for him; it is necessary as a preliminary that one requested it to enter; then only it can come when it wishes it. Its capacity ceases, like besides that of all the malignant powers, as of first light of dawn. He enjoys a certain freedom, but in exact moments. If it is not at the place where it would like to be, it can go there only at midday, or the rising, or laying down sun (...). Thus, while the vampire can sometimes achieve its own will, provided that it respects the limitations which are imposed to him and is confined in its field: its coffin with him, its hell with him, or in a place not bless (...); and still can it move only at quite precise times. It is also said that it can cross waters running only with high tide or when the sea is slack. And then, there are things which remove any capacity to him, like garlic, know we it enough; like this symbol, my small gold cross, in front of which it moves back with respect and flees. There are still others of them (...): a wild branch of rose tree, posed on its coffin, prevents it from leaving there, a ball bénite which one would draw from his coffin would kill it and it would become a true death then. As for the pile which one inserts in his heart, we know that it also gives him the eternal rest, eternal rest which it knows in the same way if the head is cut to him. It is not reflected either in the mirrors and its body does not make shade.

In first film taking as a starting point the novel, Nosferatu, Murnau indicates one means making it possible to eliminate the vampire: a woman in the middle pure must make forget to raise it day to the count. It is from there that was born the belief in the harmful effects of the rays from the sun on the vampires, which will be exploited in the majority of films. In addition, Murnau like the other scenario writers do not detail as much faculties of the vampires - by concern of reducing the intrigue, doubtless. But they lend others of them to them; thus, the films in which played Bela Lugosi developed the idea that the vampires had a hypnotic capacity allowing them, in particular, to allure the women effectively.

In its Dracula , Coppola invents new rules. Thus, its main character is able to drink and eat. He can also move the day - and not only at certain hours.

Thus, the vampire

  • nourishes Sang;
  • already died and perhaps killed in new only by special practices: pile in the heart, nail in the head, a decapitation or a cremation (the popular tradition claimed the four at the same time). It must then be buried with the angle of a crossroads (several alternatives);
  • is immortal (i.e. is not subjected to old age);
  • practical “chewing”. In many legends, the vampire does not nourish only blood, but also of human excrements and flesh, even of his clean: the vampire indeed practices the automastication of its flesh and its clothing;
  • becomes more powerful with the age, i.e. it will resist better the holy places or water bénite for example;
  • has the pale dye
  • has a gift for the seduction of which it is used for to approach some of its preys, often women.
  • should not drink blood and eat the flesh of human dead, which can cause them a very serious poisoning.

Science and vampirism

Several perfectly rational causes can explain many cases of supposed vampirism.

Among the called upon causes, let us quote:

  • the Rage: the rage was compared with the vampirism by the strong similarities in the Symptômes and the behaviors of those which are reached by it:
    • the rage develops an aggressive behavior in particular by the bite and deforms the face, being able to let appear the teeth;
    • the rage gives a pale dye to which in is reached;
    • the rage can be conveyed by bats;
    • the rabic patients suffer from Hyperesthésie at the end of the lifetime (sensitivity to the light, fear of light of day);
    • the rabic patients suffer from Hydrophobie (fear of the liquids, therefore of water bénite);
    • the rabic patients can suffer from Hypersensibilité to the strong odors, such as for example that of the garlic;
    • the rage can thus involve insomnia a strong activity the night;
    • the rage is propagated, inter alia by the bite;
    • finally, an epidemic of rage prevailed in Eastern Europe at the time of the first accounts of vampires;

  • the Xeroderma pigmentosum which is strictly speaking the disease of the vampires;

  • hyperesthesy: the patients fear the too hard lights (that of the sun), and the strong odors (that of garlic);
  • hydrophobia: the advanced patients have insupportable feelings of burn in the event of contact with water (with water bénite);
  • insomnia: the patients suffer from insomnia (the vampires live only during the night);
  • the Catalepsy;
  • an accidental burial: to see the case of Alexandre Anderson, brought back by Hake of Plancey;
  • the Porphyrie . It is a deficit of one of the enzymes intervening in the degradation of hemoglobin. It is a very rare congenital disease (a case on 200000). One of the porphyries generally appears by a urine which transfers with the red after exposure to the light, another by a hyperpilosity (Hypertrichose) and another by dental malformations. However, the “disease of the vampirism”, that one can find at certain people in Transylvania and Romania, or whose genetic line goes back to people originating in these regions, does not have any bond with the Porphyrie;
  • the Lupus erythematosus;
  • grounds rich in Arsenic. Arsenical water preserves the bodies, which can explain certain cases of preserved corpses. The most famous cases of vampirism are announced out of orthodoxe ground, where the not-putrefaction is sign diabolic (contrary to Catholicism which regards it as a divine sign);
  • the Tuberculosis: the propagation of the vampirism resembles that of tuberculosis much.
  • properties of the garlic, which fluxes blood and prevents coagulation.

Bioarcheological and Biocultural Obviousness for the New England Vampire Folk Belief by Paul S. Sledzik and Nicholas Bellantoni (1994) from The American Newspaper off Physical Anthropology No 94

Vampires in works of fiction

Vampires in the literature

The topic of the vampire inspired the poets and writers since 1748, Heinrich Augustin von Ossenfelder written Der Vampyr .

In 1797, is one century before Bram Stoker, Goethe, in Been engaged of Corinth , approaches in the form of metaphor the nondead state of an young woman nourishing blood.

The first English text on this topic was the Vampyre of John Stagg in 1810. But the first character who drew the attention was Lord Ruthven, created by John William Polidori in 1819 in a long news entitled the Vampire . With its publication, the topic of the vampirism becomes impossible to circumvent then and of many British, German, French authors test themselves there: Théophile Gautier, Hoffman, Tolstoï, etc

The following turn is taken by Sheridan Fanu with Carmilla in 1872. It presents the vampire like a victim of its own state and is at the same time opposed to the right-thinking person Great Britain by approaching the lesbianism of the character, knowing that the Homosexualité was strongly condemned.

In 1897, Bram Stoker creates Dracula which crowns the vampire character of fiction to whole share.

Anne Rice will contribute to give again the one second youth with the myth of the drinkers of blood, with its Chroniques of the Vampires , where these creatures are not any more of the sanguinary monsters, but of the gifted heroes of a sensitivity.

The traditional ones

the context of writing of this breaking news is remarkable. A challenge was launched by Lord Byron at the time one day rainy with, inter alia, John (which refused) and Mary Shelley, with the goal to write a news putting in scene death-alive. Mary Shelley generated besides Frankenstein . On the other hand, Lord Byron, inspiration lack, gave up his notes with his secretary John William Polidori, who worked this outline and had an immediate success in Europe. In fact, the paternity of this account was bitterly disputed between the two writers and was finally allotted to Lord Byron.
Lord Ruthven seems a dandy: elegant, cultivated but manipulator.

The modern ones

  • Lestat and consorts of Anne Rice in the Chronic of the vampires
In this series, Anne Rice gives an original interpretation of the origins of the vampires (see Lestat the vampire ), and centers a good part of work around the metaphysics interrogations and morals which can torture the vampires. That gives characters to excavated psychology, and who extremely contrast the ones with the others, but which, with final, has all the same motivation: that, desperate and bitter, “to continue” and to find their place in a world or all is only darkness. Their reflections are of course a mirror hardly deforming for the interrogations which can torture any human being, in particular compared to the evolution of the company, manners, the place of art, without forgetting the relationship with God.

  • Timmy Valentine of S.P. Somtow

  • Eloims of Storm Constantine in To bury the shade
  • Nothing and consorts of Poppy Z. Brite
  • Sonia Blue of Nancy Hakes in the Pleasure of blood : via the female character of vampire Sonia Blue, this book calls into question the origin of the vampires.
  • Great Vampire and Petit Vampire of the series éponymes of Joann Sfar
  • I am a legend of Richard Matheson
  • Fascination and Tentation of Stephenie Meyer
  • the scarlet paddle of Lucius Shepard
  • Salem of Stephen King
  • an ordinary vampire of Suzy McKee Charnas depicts a vampire much more animal, predatory, foreigner at the human society, while having an intellect equal if not higher than an human being. Just like I am a legend , we are there in the field of the réinvention of the myth, while sticking more to internal coherence that with the respect of the stereotypes and assets.
  • the Ball of the dead rat : cartoon with a vampire which cuts the throat of the inhabitants of the town of Ostend with the assistance of the rats.
  • Fascination of Stephanie Meyer

Vampires with the cinema

After representations of Dracula de Bram Stoker with the theater, the myth was carried to the screen. The first film was Nosferatu the Vampire by Friedrich Murnau in 1922. This film was worth to him legal proceedings on behalf of the widow of Stoker which estimated that the film was an adaptation of the book and that Murnau should have bought the rights of them to carry it to the écran.
Vampyr, or the Strange Adventure of David Gray ( Vampyr - Der Traum of Allan Grey ) is a Danish film of Carl Theodor Dreyer left in 1932. (Synopsis: David Gray settles one evening in the inn of the village of Courtempierre. During the night, an old man visits him and a black book entrusts to him on the vampirism and the means of facing there. As of this moment, David must face and thwart the traps of a woman vampire…)

In 1931, Bela Lugosi plays for the first Dracula time in a film of Tod Browning. He will endorse this role four times in all. For the anecdote, Bela Lugosi was buried with the cape of Dracula. It was in 1956. The second actor most representative of the role of Dracula was Christopher Lee which appeared in 1958 in film of Terence Fisher: the Nightmare of Dracula . Lee played this part in ten films.

The cinema presented then more or less black or parodic works on the topic of the vampires: the Ball of the vampires of Polanski in 1967 (parody) with Sharon Touches, Predatory the of Tony Scott in 1983 with Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie, both Vampire, you said Vampire? of Tom Holland in 1985 and Tommy Lee Wallace in 1988… One can note excel it remake of Nosferatu of 1922, “Nosferatu fantom der Nacht” (1978) of Werner Herzog, with Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani and Bruno Gans, put in scene with a splendid romanticism and a dazzling work of light.

A little in margin, at the end of the years 1960 and to the beginning of the year 1970, the French scenario writer Jean Rollin contributed to érotiser very inevitably the myth in achievements of a very personal esthetism.

It is only in 1992 that the topic of the vampires returns in force on the screens with Dracula of Francis Ford Coppola. Thereafter, the production of films on this topic increased and allowed as many remarkable works of uninteresting works. On the corporality of the vampires to the cinema, one will consult the study of Thomas Schlesser: “surnature and under-nature of the body in the cinema of the fantastic, the antithetic figures of the Zombi and the vampire” (see work Representations of the body in bibliography). This one shows in what the vampire, in opposition to the unobtrusive and anonymous figure of the zombie, is “head of poster and physical assertion”, a “support privileged with the composition of the actor” like “to the spectacle of fantastic” and the symbol of the violent and dramatic sudden appearance of death.

Not to neglect, the Anime S Japanese which give another face to this topic of the vampires, readily marrying it with their traditional culture with their own myths and their close history (the Eastern vampire is closer to the demon than thealive one).

  • Mr. Vampire 1 to 4 - Ricky Lau - 1985 to 1988
    Comédie Kung fu of Hong-Kong with Lam Ching Ying

  • Queen off the Damned (the Queen of damnés the) - of Michael Rymer with Stuart Townsend, Aaliyah (2000). Adaptation of the novel éponyme of Anne Rice. Stuart Townsend takes again the role of Lestat the vampire, which, awaking at our time, will found an rock group/metal in order to reveal its identity with the whole world (B.O and titles composed by Jonathan Davis, singer of the Korn group)

  • Hellsing - Kotha Hirano - 1998 Fantastic. Manga with the glory of Alucard, count of Carpates become honest with the English royal crown after its defeat vis-a-vis the band of Bram Stoker.

Vampires on television

The most known vampires on television result from the world created by Joss Whedon in the series Buffy against the vampires and Angel . Those post most of the traditional characteristics of the vampires. But, in the scenarios of this series, they represent primarily a metaphor of the fears and anguishes which the teenagers must face to become adult, and which the young adults must overcome to carry out their life. They also contribute to feed obsessions related on the death, and the sex which animate heroin, Buffy, and its deep Sado-masochisme. But this series worship represents also the Love, the love at first sight towards a person who can be semi-angel, semi-demon and the limits to be fixed in a couple which is not very stable.

In the series supernatural, the Winchester brothers fought against of the vampires.

Video games

Roleplays

Prototype of the monster with human face, the vampire appears in many plays of plate (Fury of Dracula), of video games and roleplays like the archi-enemy to be faced in the last episode. But also like character to be incarnated in the roleplays:

See also: Vampire in the roleplays

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