The 15th century prince who inspired the literary vampire Dracula may have had medical issues that caused him to cry tears of blood, according to researchers unearthing this ancient mystery.
Showing posts with label Bram Stoker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bram Stoker. Show all posts
Cinema's obsession with Dracula
Since its publication in 1897, Dracula has been adapted on screen hundreds of times. Bram Stoker's novel, which tells the story of the villainous blood-sucking Count's journey to Victoria Britain, has an enduring appeal that shows no sign of waning.
The latest Dracula film, Renfield, which stars Nicolas Cage as the vampire, comes more than 100 years after the first, albeit unofficial, depiction of the Count on screen.
Cutting his teeth: how Bram Stoker found his inner Dracula in Scotland
Author’s method acting approach to writing terrified local people in Aberdeenshire as he perched on the rocks like a bat.
In August 1894, at the end of a month-long stay to research his embryonic novel, Bram Stoker wrote in the visitors’ book at the Kilmarnock Arms on the Aberdeenshire coast that he had been “delighted with everything and everybody” and hoped to return soon.
According to new research, though, the feeling was not entirely mutual. Stoker, a genial Irishman usually known for his cheeriness, was experimenting with what would become known as “method acting” to get under the skin of his new character, one Count Dracula. Local historian Mike Shepherd, who has spent seven years researching Stoker, says the author’s links with the London theatre inspired Stoker to try inhabiting his character in a different way.
Video submission: Vampires Make it Into Academia
A group of academics met at the University of Hertfordshire in England to discuss the "Americanization" of the vampire genre. WSJ's Javier Espinoza reports.
The Legend Of Jure Grando, The First Person Described As A Vampire
Jure Grando was a peasant who lived in the small village of Kringa, just outside of Tinjan, Croatia. He died in 1656, leaving behind a widow and a wake of terror that haunted Kringa for the next 16 years.
Every night for those 16 years, the good people of Kringa would hear knocks throughout the city in the middle of the night. The knocks were warnings, a promise that someone who lived in a house that had its door knocked had little time left on this world.
Why we are living in 'Gothic times'?
There is a surge in goth-lit that channels our fears and anxieties. Hephzibah Anderson explores how the genre's past and new stories delve deep into disorder and darkness.
"We live in Gothic times," declared Angela Carter back in 1974. It's a theme Carlos Ruiz Zafón took up several decades later: "Ours is a time with a dark heart, ripe for the noir, the gothic and the baroque", he wrote in 2010. Both authors had good reason. The Gothic has always been about far more than heroines in Victorian nightgowns, trapped in labyrinthine ancestral homes, and along with the supernatural, its imaginings probe power dynamics and boundaries, delving deep into disorder and duality.
Monsters of Gothic Fiction
During the 1700s, as the world became better known through exploration and scientific experimentation, mythical monsters disappeared from studies of nature and medicine. But they became increasingly popular in the Gothic fiction that arose in the late 1700s and persisted as an important genre through the 1800s. Monsters of this literature personified the fears of society: fear of what happens when science is allowed to go too far; fear of the encroachment of contagious disease; and fear of the demons within ourselves.
Vampire Stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Distinguished vampire literature bibliographer Robert Eighteen-Bisang edited this collection, titled simply VAMPIRE STORIES (2009). Sherlock Holmes fans unfamiliar with Doyle's many other works of fiction may enjoy exploring the lesser-known stories in this volume, which does include a few Holmes adventures as well. Eighteen-Bisang provides a short introduction about Doyle, focusing mainly on his friendship with Bram Stoker and occasional annoyance at being famed solely as the creator of the Great Detective. Each tale is followed by a few paragraphs of background and commentary about the story.
America's Restless Vampires
Thousands of our American ancestors were killed by vampires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By 1800, vampires could be blamed for nearly one-quarter of all deaths in North America and vampires remained the leading cause of death throughout the nineteenth century. This vampire did not resemble the clever Count Dracula of Bram Stoker's imagination; this vampire's cloak of invisibility was its smallness. It was so tiny that it could not be seen with the naked eye, which may explain its success as a mysterious killer. The mystery was solved in 1882, the year that Edward Koch announced his discovery of the tuberculosis bacillus. America's vampires actually were—germs!
Is it bad to drink blood?
Vampires are real, and they exist in all pockets of society. But is drinking blood safe? What does the science say about sipping on blood?
We humans, we're all just flesh and blood. And as we've already covered the costs of consuming flesh, let's have some banter about imbibing blood.
Inside your vessels (blood vessels that is, not drinking vessels), blood carries just about everything your body needs. It picks up oxygen from the lungs and nutrients from the gut and hand delivers them to your cells.
We humans, we're all just flesh and blood. And as we've already covered the costs of consuming flesh, let's have some banter about imbibing blood.
Inside your vessels (blood vessels that is, not drinking vessels), blood carries just about everything your body needs. It picks up oxygen from the lungs and nutrients from the gut and hand delivers them to your cells.
Vampire myths originated with a real blood disorder
The concept of a vampire predates Bram Stoker's tales of Count Dracula—probably by several centuries. But did vampires ever really exist?
In 1819, 80 years before the publication of Dracula, John Polidori, an Anglo-Italian physician, published a novel called The Vampire. Stoker's novel, however, became the benchmark for our descriptions of vampires. But how and where did this concept develop? It appears that the folklore surrounding the vampire phenomenon originated in that Balkan area where Stoker located his tale of Count Dracula.
Video submission: The Strange Origin Of Vampires
Submitted by: Benjamin Michael
Have you ever wondered where vampire legends came from? It turns out the origin is pretty strange and unexpected, and the creature you're used to thinking of isn't much like how they began.
Vampires weren't always the pale, gaunt figure we think of when we see them today. And they definitely weren't glittery teenagers. They were something much more primal, and ugly, and... Weird.
The vampire you think of today was inspired by Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula. But the first appearance of the word vampire was almost 200 years earlier, so what did they look like in that time? Keep watching to find out!
Fact or Fiction: Are Vampires Real?
Raise the stakes with this all encompassing guide on all things vampires.
Author:
It's not your imagination: Vampires are everywhere. They're in vampire movies (hello, Interview with the Vampire) and all over television (we see you, The Vampire Diaries). They're the subject of countless books. (Twilight may have spawned a million vampiric copy cats, but if you want to get good and scared, try a classic: Stephen King's Salem's Lot.)
The Icelandic Translation of ‘Dracula’ Is Actually a Different Book
The mysteries of this Gothic classic aren’t over yet
The Icelandic version of Dracula is called Powers of Darkness, and it’s actually a different—some say better—version of the classic Bram Stoker tale.
Makt Myrkranna (the book’s name in Icelandic) was "translated" from the English only a few years after Dracula was published on May 26, 1897, skyrocketing to almost-instant fame. Next Friday is still celebrated as World Dracula Day by fans of the book, which has been continuously in print since its first publication, according to Dutch author and historian Hans Corneel de Roos for Lithub. But the Icelandic text became, in the hands of translator Valdimar Ásmundsson, a different version of the story.
The Icelandic version of Dracula is called Powers of Darkness, and it’s actually a different—some say better—version of the classic Bram Stoker tale.
Makt Myrkranna (the book’s name in Icelandic) was "translated" from the English only a few years after Dracula was published on May 26, 1897, skyrocketing to almost-instant fame. Next Friday is still celebrated as World Dracula Day by fans of the book, which has been continuously in print since its first publication, according to Dutch author and historian Hans Corneel de Roos for Lithub. But the Icelandic text became, in the hands of translator Valdimar Ásmundsson, a different version of the story.
The Wild Evolution of Vampires, From Bram Stoker to Dracula Untold
As we’ve discussed here before, the tropes that define fantasy and horror literature are fluid, which is exactly why they persist. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, witches, ghosts—for several centuries, these archetypes have figured prominently in genre fiction, in no small part because they’ve adapted to suit the specific needs (and fears) of society at any given time.
The vampire in particular has had quite a colorful tenure. Vampiric creatures and spirits date at least as far back as Mesopotamia and Ancient Greece, but the vampire as we know it emerged in the early 1700s, when natives and foreigners alike began recording the folklore and superstitions of the Balkans, that cluster of eastern European countries that would become home to the most famous vampire of all time: Count Dracula.
The vampire in particular has had quite a colorful tenure. Vampiric creatures and spirits date at least as far back as Mesopotamia and Ancient Greece, but the vampire as we know it emerged in the early 1700s, when natives and foreigners alike began recording the folklore and superstitions of the Balkans, that cluster of eastern European countries that would become home to the most famous vampire of all time: Count Dracula.
Was a Hungarian "vampire" countess the world's most prolific serial killer?
When it comes to naming the world's most prolific serial killer, some boundaries must be established. As Soviet dictator from 1924 to 1953, Josef Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of citizens who died from starvation and internment in gulags (forced labor camps). Adolph Hitler's genocidal bent led to the murders of nearly 21 million people (not including those combatants who died fighting the German army).
But these men, and others like them who've issued wholesale execution orders, did not directly murder the people who died under their authority. And to be considered a serial killer, one must have personally murdered three or more people.
But these men, and others like them who've issued wholesale execution orders, did not directly murder the people who died under their authority. And to be considered a serial killer, one must have personally murdered three or more people.
Vampires and Biochemistry
Perhaps you are a fan of Twilight the movie or the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, or True Blood the television drama series created and produced by Alan Ball, based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris. Vampires with their frightening appearance and unusual powers and weaknesses can cause one to pause and question how this is possible. Can this mythicalogical being brought to life in Dracula, the 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, featuring as its primary antagonist the vampire Count Dracula, have any basis in reality? Is there any connection to what we know about biological systems that could explain vampirism? I doubt that you would be surprised if I said yes, since this is a biochemistry course website.
The Words on Nelly's Tombstone
Originally printed in Yankee Magazine, January 1994
The villagers of Exeter, Rhode Island, knew that farmer George Brown had a problem. First, in 1883 his wife, Mary, succumbed to a mysterious illness. Six months later, his 20-year-old daughter, Mary Olive, also fell ill and died. Within the next several years, his 19-year-old daughter, Mercy, was also dead, and George's teenage son, Edwin, a healthy lad who worked as a store clerk, became suddenly frail and sick. The village doctor informed George that "consumption" was taking his family. But the country folk of Exeter had another explanation.
The villagers of Exeter, Rhode Island, knew that farmer George Brown had a problem. First, in 1883 his wife, Mary, succumbed to a mysterious illness. Six months later, his 20-year-old daughter, Mary Olive, also fell ill and died. Within the next several years, his 19-year-old daughter, Mercy, was also dead, and George's teenage son, Edwin, a healthy lad who worked as a store clerk, became suddenly frail and sick. The village doctor informed George that "consumption" was taking his family. But the country folk of Exeter had another explanation.
Vampires in Myth and History
Vampire myths go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world. Their variety is almost endless; from red eyed monsters with green or pink hair in China to the Greek Lamia which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged serpent; from vampire foxes in Japan to a head with trailing entrails known as the Penanggalang in Malaysia.
However, the vampires we are familiar with today, although mutated by fiction and film, are largely based on Eastern European myths. The vampire myths of Europe originated in the far East, and were transported from places like China, Tibet and India with the trade caravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. Here they spread out along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania.
However, the vampires we are familiar with today, although mutated by fiction and film, are largely based on Eastern European myths. The vampire myths of Europe originated in the far East, and were transported from places like China, Tibet and India with the trade caravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. Here they spread out along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania.
Count Dracula and the Folkloric Vampire: Thirteen Comparisons
“There are such beings as vampires ...The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once.” -- Van Helsing (Dracula 286-87)
Western European words such as vampire (English and French) and vampiros (Spanish) derive from vampir which occurs in the Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian languages. The term entered the mainstream press of Western Europe during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century along with sensational reports of “vampire plagues” from Eastern Europe. The original vampir of Slavic folklore was indeed a revenant who left his grave in corporeal form (at least in appearance -- there are cases where the revenant was considered to be the spirit of the dead person), brought death to the living, and returned to his grave periodically. There were other Slavic names for such revenants such as vorkudlak (Serbo-Croatian), obour (Bulgarian), upir (Russian, Ukranian, and Polish). But the name vampire became so fixated in western Europe that it has come to be applied to all the corporeal revenants bringing death to the living which occur in the folk beliefs of Eastern Europe.
Western European words such as vampire (English and French) and vampiros (Spanish) derive from vampir which occurs in the Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian languages. The term entered the mainstream press of Western Europe during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century along with sensational reports of “vampire plagues” from Eastern Europe. The original vampir of Slavic folklore was indeed a revenant who left his grave in corporeal form (at least in appearance -- there are cases where the revenant was considered to be the spirit of the dead person), brought death to the living, and returned to his grave periodically. There were other Slavic names for such revenants such as vorkudlak (Serbo-Croatian), obour (Bulgarian), upir (Russian, Ukranian, and Polish). But the name vampire became so fixated in western Europe that it has come to be applied to all the corporeal revenants bringing death to the living which occur in the folk beliefs of Eastern Europe.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)