The Evolution of Vampires in Literature

       The long and bloody history of vampires commenced through the European folklore in 1700s. It all rooted by the craze attack of vampires in Serbian countryside and generated some victims who made confession before they suddenly died within days. They stated that their relatives or neighbors who just died haunt them in the night and then strangled them afterward . This odd phenomenon encouraged townspeople to digging the graves of people who suspected as vampires, and then it all proved by the sign of corpses with blood in their mouth. Throughout this entire precarious situation, Heinrich August Ossenfelder recited the first poems about this horrific creature in 1748 known as “The Vampire”. Heinrich brought a horror theme about the return of dead person to take revenge for their enemy in the night by drinking their blood and bring them to death. 

     The Serbian town-talk scattered abroad as a gothic fiction which took role over the world. According to Oxford University Press, London papers printed news about the strange deaths and vampire genre coloring the world of English Literature for the first time with the appearance of epic poem "Thalaba the Destroyer" by Robert Southey in 1797. This poem describes the risen of Thalaba’s new bride who just died who wanted to bring him to death with her. This poem related to European tale about vampires who took revenge and got victims with them.

      Entering the 19th century, the history of vampire is grown bigger in English Literature by the came out of “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley in 1816. Frankenstein is a story about young scientist who did a vicious experiment to invent a fantastical creature that different from any kind of vampire before. Mary wrote this story in competition of creating ghost story which held by Lord Byron in the middle of their travel with 2 others, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John William Polidori who is Byron’s personal doctor, to kill the time while they stuck in rainy summer. After Mary published “Frankenstein”, Polidori launched “The Vampyre” three years later that was inspired by the unfinished ghost story by Lord Byron who tells about the mysterious meeting of some aristocracy in one journey. The Vampyre is a story about a charming aristocrat named Lord Ruthven who mysteriously comes to London society with dangerous tastes. Polidori made “The Vampire” not as horrific as earlier literature described, but he combined horror with love which makes the story is a romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction. This story indicates the modification of vampire to higher class which closely touched the modernism that no longer related to the gothic fiction about the vampire who rise from the grave, but instead of vampire that can be a human being in normal life. Then, the story becomes the progenitor of modern vampires all the time.

      Polidori was successfully triggered “The Vampyre” through the pop-culture phenomenon, even Queen Victoria interested in watching the series of vampire plays . This breakthrough work inspired Sheridan Le Fanu fifty years later to enhanced literary works by “Carmilla”, a vampire who preyed a young girl at isolated castle. This work followed by “Dracula” twenty years later, the masterwork of Bram Stoker as the everlasting horror story. He illustrated Dracula as the most terrifying creatures and sadistic blood sucker than vampire which intended to become the cultural key all the time. This was the most successful influenced horror tale in nineteenth century since been adapted by many books and over 200 movies .

      The illustrations of vampire keep branching out through the vampire literature, both from its physical modification or even genres. After the famous Dracula come out, Anne Rice coloring the twentieth century by drew the vampire as a sexy and hot creatures by mixed both sex and romance genre all at once. She started by doing some exploration from traditional Gothic until modern ideas and then combined them into one which created the most sensational “The Vampire Chronicles”. 

      Overall, her works relatively inspired the modern vampire literature such as Stephanie Meyer with her lately masterpiece, Twilight Saga. Stephanie created the image of vampire is the same as human being in normal life. She made vampire can walk in the sun and adapt with society by drinking animal’s blood. And certainly, the gorgeous face of Edward Cullen becomes the icon of vampires in twenty-first century. 

      After all of the vampire’s history, each region has its own folklore about the blood-drinking creatures. Vampire folklore can be divided into western and eastern perspective. From the eastern side, Mesopotamia, vampire is illustrated as a demon who drinking baby bloods and they can originally disguise as maiden before attacking the baby .

      Meanwhile, the western describes vampire as a cold-blood person who drinking blood from human and become the strongest and most dangerous creatures in the world. In most cases, vampire is invisible ghosts that come to life again after died and haunt the living soul in the world.