The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic LiteratureIn his Preface to The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature, James Twitchell writes that he is not interested in the current generation of vampires, which he finds "rude, boring and hopelessly adolescent. However, they have not always been this way. In fact, a century ago they were often quite sophisticated, used by artists varied as Blake, Poe, Coleridge, the Brontes, Shelley, and Keats, to explain aspects of interpersonal relations. However vulgar the vampire has since become, it is important to remember that along with the Frankenstein monster, the vampire is one of the major mythic figures bequeathed to us by the English Romantics. Simply in terms of cultural influence and currency, the vampire is far more important than any other nineteenth-century archetypes; in fact, he is probably the most enduring and prolific mythic figure we have. This book traces the vampire out of folklore into serious art until he stabilizes early in this century into the character we all too easily recognize. - Book Jacket. |
From inside the book
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Page 46
... destroy the evil snake . In terms of the vampire myth perhaps he is the priest or dhampire who must be trusted to destroy the vampire ; in terms of the psychodrama he is the superego . But Leoline remains dull to the very end ...
... destroy the evil snake . In terms of the vampire myth perhaps he is the priest or dhampire who must be trusted to destroy the vampire ; in terms of the psychodrama he is the superego . But Leoline remains dull to the very end ...
Page 89
... destroy not herself , but him , and in doing so ironically makes herself party to the same horrible processes that ... destroyed the demon by driving an aspen , maple , hawthorn , or buckthorn stake through the fiend's heart ; in ...
... destroy not herself , but him , and in doing so ironically makes herself party to the same horrible processes that ... destroyed the demon by driving an aspen , maple , hawthorn , or buckthorn stake through the fiend's heart ; in ...
Page 91
... destroy . For again as Shelley wrote , “ men , having been injured , desire to injure in return . This is falsely called a universal law of human nature ; it is a law from which many are exempt and all in proportion to their virtue and ...
... destroy . For again as Shelley wrote , “ men , having been injured , desire to injure in return . This is falsely called a universal law of human nature ; it is a law from which many are exempt and all in proportion to their virtue and ...
Contents
The Female Vampire | 39 |
The Male Vampire in Poetry | 74 |
The Vampire in Prose | 103 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature James B. Twitchell Limited preview - 1981 |
The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature James B. Twitchell,Twitchell No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
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