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 127
... narrator himself . Professor Bailey has already called into question the narrator's veracity , but he did not take the next step to contend that the narrator might well be the villain of the piece . I don't really want to go that far ...
... narrator himself . Professor Bailey has already called into question the narrator's veracity , but he did not take the next step to contend that the narrator might well be the villain of the piece . I don't really want to go that far ...
Page 181
... narrator himself.70 I believe that James was using the narrator primarily as an authorial foil to show that just as there is energy flowing between characters , there is also energy flowing between the narrator and his subjects , or ...
... narrator himself.70 I believe that James was using the narrator primarily as an authorial foil to show that just as there is energy flowing between characters , there is also energy flowing between the narrator and his subjects , or ...
Page 182
... narrator too seriously . Although the narrator's theory is valid , his overzealous application is misplaced , for in his attempt to make sense out of what he encounters , he perforce reduces it to manageable size , and in doing this ...
... narrator too seriously . Although the narrator's theory is valid , his overzealous application is misplaced , for in his attempt to make sense out of what he encounters , he perforce reduces it to manageable size , and in doing this ...
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 |
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