Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Interview With(out) A Vampire

The following cyber-interview of Professor Kirby was conducted on 10 March 2010 by Baker Pylorus-Elks, a young scholar working in the Atlanta area, as part of an ongoing year-long project. No vampires were harmed in the course of this dialogue.

(All images Wikimedia Commons; used by permission or under fair use.)

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BAKER PYLORUS-ELKS: Do you feel that the characteristics of the traditional European vampire have been altered to correspond with American culture? Why?

JOHN T. KIRBY:
Absolutely, because the figure of the vampire (I believe) functions as a kind of screen upon which we project some of our deepest fears (and wildest fantasies) about our own selves: in short, about what it means to be human. Such projections are always inevitably situated in a particular time and culture. So the mediaeval European vampire would almost necessarily have to undergo some radical change in order to speak to current American culture.

This was already the case, in several respects, with the single most important vampire in art: Bram Stoker's Count Dracula. Dracula, the novel, was published in London in 1897, and the vast majority of the action is set in the England of that period (Stoker himself never travelled east of Yorkshire, so he was dependent upon book-descriptions of Transylvania and the Carpathians). But the historical Vlad Ţepeş, who in some (not all!) respects was the model for Stoker's Dracula, lived in the 15th century (and was a sovereign prince, not a mere count). Stoker, then, has already had to do a certain amount of altering -- by virtue of the very contours of his plot -- in order to create a character that would be able to make himself at home in fin-de-siècle England.

And indeed, Stoker's own precursors in the genre -- for example, John Polidori, friend and physician of Lord Byron, and author of the first vampire story in English -- 'The Vampyre' -- had already perpetrated a gigantic alteration on the typical profile of the vampire. Prior to Polidori's tale, vampires (in European legend) were typically poor peasant types, perhaps even social outcasts, and their post-mortem existence was seen in one way or another as a continuation of their miserable lifetimes. Polidori's Lord Ruthven, on the other hand, is strangely charismatic -- and, what is more, aristocratic. Some speculate that in this regard Lord Ruthven is himself modeled on Lord Byron; whether or not that is the case, Polidori dramatically changed the socioeconomic parameters of vampire lore by portraying his vampire as a nobleman. This was picked up in turn by Polidori's successor, Sheridan Le Fanu, whose novella Carmilla features a countess; and of course by Stoker himself, whose Dracula owes demonstrable debts both to Polidori and to Le Fanu.

BPE: How big of a role has commercialization played in the evolution of the vampire?

JTK:
I would say that commercialization is likely always to play a role in art commensurate with the money at stake (no pun intended). In particular, as long as the US economy is a capitalist system, commerce will always remain a major factor in American art.

If the work of art in question is a novel that the publishing house expects (or needs) to become a bestseller, the marketing angle alone will be highly commercialized. Commercialization in publishing reaches every conceivable aspect of the project, from the designing of the cover and the choice of a typeface, to the amount (if any) of the advance given to the author pre-publication, to the marketing program before and after the first printing hits the stands. In some cases, the editing itself may also be tailored to commercial requirements.

If the work of art we're talking about is a film, the parameters will be similar: a large-scale Hollywood blockbuster will require a huge budget and/for the 'right' director, actors, and so on, whereas a small art-house or indie film will likely be less commercial.

One of the interesting questions to be considered under this heading is the relationship of artistic freedom to the demands of commerce. If the artist has backers who feel that the direction the artist is headed in may be detrimental to the bottom line, they are likely to exert some pressure on the artist to conform with guidelines they feel will be the most commercially successful.

Another question, possibly related to the previous, is the issue of audiences: specifically, suitability for young people who might be reading the book or watching the movie. Vampire lore is, after all, potentially highly erotic and/or gruesome, and may be deemed unsuitable for minors. (This was a very conscious guiding principle for Stephenie Meyer, the author of the wildly popular Twilight tetralogy; a practicing Mormon, Meyer did not want teen readers being exposed to 'gratuitous sex' in her fiction. The result is a very particular type of novel, both in terms of what it includes and what it omits. Her vampires, particularly the Cullen family, hew to an austere moral code that Vlad the Impaler, and his avatar Count Dracula, would find laughable -- and that most ordinary humans would find impossibly challenging. At the same time, they are far more erotic (without being overtly sexual) than anything in Stoker or before (with the possible exception of certain demure references in Le Fanu's Carmilla to some undeniably steamy interactions). I will have more to say about sex and eroticism in just a moment.

BPE: Why do you feel that the symbol of the vampire has been romanticized in modern pop culture?

JTK:
Love and hate, attraction and repulsion, are primal polarities in the human psyche. Indeed this notion has been around at least since the ancient Greeks; the presocratic philosopher Empedocles built an entire cosmological system around the idea.

Early (i.e. pre-Polidori) representations of the vampire were profoundly hateful and repulsive; it was only a matter of time before the polarity was inevitably going to switch. Chances are that it will eventually switch again. But for now -- and here we are harking back to your question about commercialization -- sex (or at least the erotic) is such a powerfully saleable commodity in art, that it is hard to imagine it vanishing from the realm of any art that has a commercial aspect. Things can certainly change radically; if you look at the jaw-droppingly graphic depictions of sexual behavior in the 18th-century Chinese novel 《紅樓夢》Hong Lou Meng, and compare these with the severely puritanical mores of the Maoist regime, you will see just how far the pendulum can swing. So we should not be surprised if the vampire is eventually de-romanticized. The question in that case would be: What would replace the romanticism? How would/could artists re-create the figure of the vampire, deleting all romanticizing elements or even working against them, and still produce art that would attract an audience?

BPE: Is there an American vampire that you feel has stayed true to the traditional European characteristics?

JTK:
It depends on what you mean by an 'American' vampire. Would you count a vampire created by an American artist, even if the character is not represented as being an American citizen? If so, consider Elizabeth Kostova's Dracula (in The Historian). He is very consciously meant to resonate closely with Stoker's Count Dracula, in some ways, and the historical Vlad Ţepeş, in others. (All the same, he is arguably not as repulsive as either, for reasons specific to her novel.) Ditto the Dracula of Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula (on both counts) (again, no pun intended!).

I should also point out that it depends upon what you mean by 'traditional' here. We are dealing with many layers of tradition(s), from a number of different times and places -- on the European Continent, in Great Britain, and in the USA. Polidori, Le Fanu, and Stoker were all breaking with 'tradition' in certain fundamental respects. Anne Rice, perhaps more than any single other author since Stoker, broke with what we might call the Stokerian tradition, in ways that (I would argue) have decisively and massively affected all subsequent artists in fiction and film. The creators of the HBO series True Blood and the Twilight books and films have added new layers to the (principally American) tradition, which is itself rooted in various ways in the European.

BPE: Why is a figure that represents death so appealing to modern society?

JTK:
That is a particularly wonderful question. Again, I believe it has to do with those polarities we discussed above. Sigmund Freud, late in life, postulated that human existence is motivated by two basic (antithetical) drives: eros and thanatos -- the latter, of course, being death. If he is right about that, and I surmise that in some sense he is, then our attraction to death would be a sort of approach/avoidance mechanism -- a simultaneous fear of, and fascination with, the end that awaits us all.

And, of course, in the figure of the vampire, eros and thanatos are themselves united and given tremendous combined power. In other words, I believe the attraction you are talking about here is not just to thanatos alone: it is to thanatos plus eros, thanatos combined with and compounded by eros. (We are back to your topic of romanticism when we contemplate the famous line of Keats, 'I have been half in love with easeful death.')

BPE: With the current depiction of vampires in movies, television, and literature, do you foresee a return to the traditional portrayal of vampires?

JTK:
Anything can happen, of course, but frankly I would be rather surprised to see the salient characteristics of today's vampires -- the distinctive traits, for the most part, of the American tradition -- disappearing entirely. Society may simply become weary of all this vampirism (though, again, I doubt it); or, alternatively, we may see an ongoing attempt to expand and embroider our current trove of vampire lore and legend. Indeed we are already seeing a certain amount of this in the current cinema: consider, for example, the Underworld series (2003, 2006, 2009), in which the vampire legendarium is quite extensively braided with that of the werewolf. And that strategy has been adopted in the Twilight projects as well.

Continuing innovation will become increasingly difficult, as we seem already to have hit many (if not most) of the most sensitive topics, the most resonant symbols. But human creativity never ceases to amaze. The vampires being depicted fifty years from now might completely astound you. Perhaps you will remember this conversation when you are examining the distinctive traits of vampire lore in 2060.

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JOHN T. KIRBY is Professor and Chair of Classics at the University of Miami. He has so far published five books, and numerous articles and book chapters, on various aspects of classical literature and culture, and is currently working on a book about vampires. He has taught courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels on 'The Vampire in Folklore, Fiction, and Film,' and has led an academic study tour to Romania, in the course of which students visited the birthplace, palaces and fortresses, and (empty!) tomb of Vlad Ţepeş.

10 comments:

Amy said...

I agree that eros and thanatos are likely to be primary attractants for the vampire lore. However, I'd like to suggest a flirtation with danger as a possible addition or tangent. Consider the rush of a particularly dangerous sport, for example. I believe the elation of a brush with either death or passion produces similar biological responses and may contribute to the physical attraction of the vampire.

corax said...

thanks amy for your comment. are you saying, in other words, that a brush with eros feels [or can feel] as dangerous to us, in some ways, as a brush with thanatos? and that the vampire is doubly attractive to us because s/he combines them into an even more looming threat?

Christopher Kumetz said...

Magister Corax,

I'm curious what you think about the influence of scientific discovers have had on the persona of the vampire. As more and more knowledge is being found about DNA and viruses and life at the cellular level, it seems that a lot of modern approaches to Vampires - especially in cinema - have been giving a "practical" reason for the existence of vampires, such as a mutation causing uncontrollable thirst for hemoglobin or a vast skin reaction causing vampires to stay in during the day (photodermatitis). Do you believe that the modern scientific influences have evolved the traditional cross fearing, bat flying vampire or has it rather replaced the traditional vampire all together creating a new "mythical character" that could potentially replace or even be a completely different character to the traditional vampire in days to come?"

Chris Kimm said...

I think it's all about the biting. We Americans do like putting things in our mouths.

Amy said...

I am suggesting that danger is inherently provocative because it maintains a touch-and-go relationship with both eros and thanatos. To experience any one of them gives a hint of the experience of the others. Hmm, this is much more difficult to articulate than it was to think.

corax said...

@amy -- difficult, yes, but you are doing a good job of it. would i be wrong to say you have [elegantly] paraphrased/summarized what i said to you above?

@ el smacko -- LOL! you staked it.

Stephen said...

I'm personally hoping that someone chooses to further explore the relationship between vampires and rave culture; the *Blade* "blood rave" scene definitely left me wanting more.

corax said...

QVONDAM DISCIPVLO CHRISTOPHORO SALVS. you have a sharp eye, and a scientific mind. i would like to try and do both justice, here, by making a few remarks about [a] science IN vampire lore and [b] science ON vampire lore. i think this whole issue is very much in the spirit of the original interview above.

[a] IN: i think you are spot-on here. interestingly, the trend is not a brand-new one; it has been coming along for quite some time. in fact, one of the things that makes stoker's DRACULA an important piece of fiction from its period is the focus on scientific inquiry. you will notice, when you re-read the novel, that his characters make use of then-innovative technologies such as typewriters and blood transfusions. admittedly these sound rather tame today, but bear in mind that stoker began work on this novel in about 1890. as a benchmark: the telephone had only been around for about 15 years at that point.

subsequent stories and movies have of course capitalized on our fascination with science and technology. for example, recent oscar-winning director kathryn bigelow directed, in 1987, a [much-underappreciated, in my estimation] vampire movie called NEAR DARK -- in which blood transfusion plays a [literally] vital role. i won't say more about this because i don't want to spoil it for you, but i recommend your seeing it. much more recently, the 2007 remake of I AM LEGEND [starring will smith] and the 2010 ethan hawke vehicle DAYBREAKERS, like the HBO series TRUEBLOOD, both explicitly take what we might call a hematological approach to the question of vampirism [which, correspondingly, changes the etiology of vampirism from a curse to a medical condition]. i have no doubt that this trend is directly, if not always consciously, related to our anxieties in recent decades over HIV and other blood-borne antigens, and the potential for such problems to become truly pandemic.

[b] ON: as science *in* vampire lore continues [in the above and in other ways] to proliferate, we should only expect there to be more scientific writing *on* vampires and 'vampirism' [however the latter may be constituted in the literature]. if you are interested in reading some of this, i strongly recommend that you begin with alan dundes's wonderful collection THE VAMPIRE: A CASEBOOK, which includes two interesting articles a' propos: paul barber's fascinating 'forensic pathology and the european vampire,' and 'clinical vampirism blending myth and reality,' by philip d. jaffe and frank dicataldo. each of these, in turn, cites extensive bibliographic sources to which you could subsequently turn.

i also recommend that you do some reading on porphyria and its alleged connections with vampires.

to return now to the specific contours of your question: i don't think the scientizing of vampirism has yet replaced one monster with another; rather [and for well over a century now] the presence of science and technology in vampire lore has become another facet of the way we make use of this tradition, or set of traditions, that is of course many centuries old.

corax said...

@stephen: an intriguing connection. is it total coincidence that rave culture, like stoker's DRACULA, arose in the UK?

Sakin said...

I leave in Transilvania (Romania) and i don't see any vampire:).