The first study to propose a unifying logic underlying the many and
varied representations of the vampire in literature and culture.
For the last three hundred years, fictions of the vampire have fed off
anxieties about cultural continuity. Though commonly represented as a
parasitic aggressor from without, the vampire is in fact a native of
Europe, and its "metamorphoses," to quote Baudelaire, a distorted image
of social transformation. Because the vampire grows strong whenever and
wherever traditions weaken, its representations have multiplied with
every political, economic, and technological revolution from the
eighteenth century on. Today, in the age of globalization, vampire
fictions are more virulent than ever, and the monster enjoys hunting
grounds as vast as the international market.
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 PhDfrom 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).
