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Metamorphoses of the Vampire in Literature and Film: Cultural Transformations in Europe, 1732-1933
Author(s): Erik Butler (Author)
- Publisher: Camden House
- Publication Date: 1 Mar. 2010
- Language: English
- Print length: 238 pages
- ISBN-10: 1571134328
- ISBN-13: 9781571134325
Book Description
Metamorphoses of the Vampire explains why representations of vampirism began in the eighteenth century, flourished in the nineteenth, and came to eclipse nearly all other forms of monstrosity in the early twentieth century. Many of the works by French and German authors discussed here have never been presented to students and scholars in the English-speaking world. While there are many excellent studies that examine Victorian vampires, the undead in cinema, contemporary vampire fictions, and the vampire in folklore, until now no work has attempted to account for the unifying logic that underlies the vampire’s many and often apparently contradictory forms.
Erik Butler holds a PhD from Yale University and has taught at Emory University and Swarthmore College. His publications include
The Bellum Gramaticale and the Rise of European Literature (2010) and a translation with commentary of Regrowth (Vidervuks) by the Soviet Jewish author Der Nister (2011).Editorial Reviews
Review
[S]ucceeds in bringing a wealth of new voices from French and German scholarship to a field mostly dominated by English-language research. . . . [B]rings together a wealth of exciting literary, biographical, and filmic material . . . . [S]cholars and students interested in the monster will no doubt enjoy reading this book, and its individual chapters on the likes of Dracula and Nosferatu are a highly recommended read for courses on the subject. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW
[C]overs a lot of ground. . . . [E]specially informative for classroom use. MONATSHEFTE
Butler brings to the feast . . . a rare cross-cultural perspective. . . . He also, and very convincingly, calls attention to the instability of genre that haunts vampire narratives . . . . Not merely a contribution to the cultural explication of the vampire, [this book] also touches on . . . broader . . . social transformations of both eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe . . . with elegance and intelligence. VICTORIAN STUDIES
Butler’s analyses of the development of vampire literature in the European tradition – most notably in France and Germany – are the most distinctive. . . A valuable contribution. CHOICE
Butler’s study shows conclusively that the term “vampire” represents a construct that has been exposed over the centuries to semantic and medial processes of change while mirroring and intensifying them in a cultural sense. . . . [T]he work [also] shows that vampires as a popular export of the Hollywood film industry are returning above all to the place from which they emerged in the eighteenth century to conquer the world: to Europe. LITERATURKRITIK.DE
Provides interesting analyses of the . . . discourses shaping the vampire, and uncovers fascinating cross currents. GERMAN QUARTERLY
