Re-Reading the Vampire from John Polidon to Anne Rice

315 Pages·2001·16.42 MB·English

Re-Reading the Vampire from John Polidon to Anne Rice:
Structures of lmpossibility Among Three Narrative Variations in
the Vampinc Tradition
PETER LEONARD PAOLUCCI
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies
in partial fuifiliment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Program in English
York University
Toronto, Ontario
Apnl, 2000
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Re-Reading the Vampire from John Polidori to Anne Rice:
Structures of Impossibility Among Three Narrative
Variations in the Vampiric Tradition
by PETER LEONARD PAOLUCCI
a dissertation subrnitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of
York University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
O 2000
Permission has been granted to the LIBRARY OF YORK
UNIVERSITY to lend or set1 copies of this dissertation. to the
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA to microfilm this dissertation
and to lend or sel1 copies of the film, and to UNIVERSITY
MICROFILMS to publish an abstract of this dissertation.
The author reserves other publication rights. and neither the
dissertation nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or
otherwise reproduced without the author's written permission.
This dissertation offers a new paradigm to assist in the interpretation of the
vampiric tradition in the English language from its origins (John Polidori) to
contemporary examples (Anne Rice). The study posits a three-part taxonomy of
vampiric narratives: vilifcation, heroic and sublime. Each of these variations can
be applied to fiction drama, and film. Vilification narratives constnict the vampire
as essentially monstrous and repulsive whereas heroic narratives vaiorize the
vampire and encourage reader or audience sympathy. Sublime narratives,
however, tend to resist the more polarized moral and aesthetic judgments about
the vampire, though not always successfully. In sublime narratives, judgement is
suspended because the narrative focus remains enthralled by the vampire's
inherent contradictions, and by the psychological paradoxes of its interiority.
Sublime narratives anxiously cunstruct the vampire as lover-predator, alive-dead,
fascinating-temfying, natural-supernatural, human-demonic, attractive-ugIy, good-
evil and, in short, as a contradictory experience that ernbraces opposing
sensations and sentiments. All sublime narratives attempt to resolve these
tensions; some are successful others are not-
Al1 three narrative types descrÏbe events, incidents, or states of being that
may be unexpected, inwngruous, or difficult to accept for the characters, and by
implication, for audiences and readers; such events, incidents or states constitute
examples of the impossible. The most frequently recumng and deeply rooted
v
ÏmpossibiMy in the vampiric tradition is supematuralism and the consequent
debate over whether or not vampires actually exist. All three vampiric narratives
are engaged in this controversy. It is the sublime narrative in particuiar, however,
that is always caught in the balance, always tom between recognizing the
vampire as an intrusion of malevolent supematural agencies into human affairs
and on a more rational and scientific level, always attempting to explain away
supematural phenornena merely as misunderstood events in nature or in the
human world. Impossibility in the vampiric tradition is further conflated with
metaphors for other kinds of impossibilities, especially queemess. deviant sexual
practices, and those particular configurations of romantic love triangles that are at
once alluring and forbidden. Over time, al1 these variations of impossibility have
mutated and recombined to produce the content of vilification, heroic and sublime
narratives, but the most compelling shifts have occurred within sublime
narratives. This dissertation rnaps out those shifts over tirne.
Works discussed are Polidori's The Vampyre (18 19 ). Planché's The
Vampyre, or the Bride of the lsles (18 20). Rymer's Vamey the Vampyre (18 47),
Le Fanu's Carmilla (1 872), Sto ker's Dracula (18 97), Murnau's Nosferatu (19 22),
Balderston and Deane's Dracula: (1 927). Browning's Dracula (1 932). King's
Salem's Lot (19 75). Rice's interview With the Vampire, the 1976 novel and the
1994 film, and Coppola's Bram Stokefs Dr-acula (1992). The early nineteenth
century (Polidori to Rymer) is dominated by vilifying and heroic narratives that
vi
combine the îrnpossibilify of supematuralism with the conventionalities of
forbidden and romantic iove. Queemess and the deconstruction of masculinity
are oniy latent. The transfonning power in the later nineteenth century (Le Fanu
and Stoker) is evident in the emergence of sublime narratives that combine
sexual and gender queerness with the supematural while subordinating
conventional romance. Finally, the twentieth century shows the evolution of only
two distinct narratives instead of three. Vilification narratives (Murnau and King)
continue to develop, but perhaps more importantly, there emerges a newfy
mutated variety of sublime narrative in which the supematural, queerness and the
deconstruction of gender, are integrated with wnventional romance. This line of
narrative evolution is illustrated in Coppola and Rice and, to a lesser extent, their
predecessors, Balderston/Deane and Browning.
vii
Acknowledgments
I remain deeply indebted to Professors Christopher lnnes and Maurice
Elliott, who found me by the Rvers of Babylon- Their carhg encouragement and
generosity of spirit were essential to the success of this project. Professor David
Latharn was meticulous and insightful, and always a thought-provoking reader. 1
found the spirit of this cornmittee always to be uplifting as well as enriching and I
am grateful.
My colleagues at Stong College were also wonderfuIly supportive,
especially my predecessor as Academic Advisor, Professor Greg Malszecki and
acting Master, Professor Frances Flint. Both seem to have had an uncanny
sense of knowing when I needed cheerleading and when I needed solitude. My
long-time fnend and once fellow-student, Dr. John Radcliffe, was an inspiration
too. And to my former students in ASlSC 1990 "The Gothic Tradition," frorn 1983
to 1996, thank you, each, and every one, for teaching me so much and for
perennially rejuvenating this material for me.
To my beautiful and most patient wife, Sari, who has been without her
husband for so long, thank you for al1 your personal sacrifice, and your undying
love and support. To my most precious daughter Stephanie, thank you for
teaching me the value of play, the joy of iaughter and the importance of balance
in life. I love you both, always.
viii
Table of Contents
ln traduction .......................................~................................................. 1
Chapter One:
Theorizing the Impossible .... ...................... . ............................... 21
Chapter Two
Vilifying and Heroicizing Narratives of the Eariy Nineteenth Century:
Masculinity in Cnsis ............................................................................. 8 1
Chapter Three
Narratives of the Sublime In the Late Nineteenth Century:
Gender Crisis .......................~..~............................................................ 121
Chapfer Four
Narratives of the Twentieth Century
lmpossibility in the VilificafionN arrative
Chapter Five
Narratives of the Twentieth Century
The T M p ho f Romance: .............................................................. 19 9
Conclusion ............................................................................................... 25 1
AppendixA .............................................................................................. 257
Appendix B .............................................................................................. 263
Appendix C ..............................~.........................~.................................... 270
Works Cited ................................. ... ................................................... 276
List of lltustrations
Appendix A
Figure 1 : Fuseli, The Nighfmare (frorn Nicholas powell, 19)
Figure 2: Anonymous, The Nightmare (from NicholaS Powelll 14)
Figure 3: Anonyrnous, The Nightmare (frorn Nicholas Powell. 58)
Figure 4: N. Abildgaard. A Nightmare (from NicholaS Powell, 89)
Figure 5: W. Raddon, The Nightmare (from NiCholas Powell, 99)
Appendix B
Figure 6: J.E. Millais, The Rescue (frorn Herbert SusSman, 145 )
Figure 7: J.E. Millais, The Knight Errant (frorn Herbert Sussmanl 147)
Figure 8: D. H. Fiston, Millarca Affacking ber Vidim (hem Kendfick, 16 4)
Figure 9: Herzog's Nosferatu (from Hutchinson & ~ickard1. 1)
Figure 10: Lee and Blair (from Silver and Ursini, 27)
Figure 1 1: Ryder and Oldham (from Sifver and ursini, 142)
Appendix C
Figure 12: Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu (frorn David SkaL 53)
Figure 13: Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu (from David Skal, 62)
Figure 14: Gary Oldham as Coppola's Dracula from Francis Ford Coppola
and Eiko Ishioka, 20)
Figure 15: Philip Burne-Jones, The Vampire, 1897 (from Skal, 29)
Figure 16: Van Helsing and Mina frorn Coppola's ~racula(fr om Francis Ford
Coppola and James Hart, 152)
1
Introduction:
The words impossible and impossibility are used interchangeably in this
dissertation and they share a very specific meaning that is distinct front ordinary
usage. Although 1 use impossible to mean that which "cannot exist or come in to
being" (OED), my particular meaning also refers to a phenornenon that is not yet
known, and for which there is not yet a word or expression. The impossible is
viscerai, but not rational; intuited, but not articulated; felt, but not thought; sensed,
but not understood; it is unexpected, startling, and taboo, but only comprehended
as such after it has been somewhat pleasantly experienced. Finally, the
impossible is at once familiar and exotically mysterious. Al1 these contradictions
produce anxiety, and the intensity of this anxiety in tutn, corresponds directly to
the extent to which our society has taught us nof to believe in the impossible-
The impossible is manifested through the vampire in two main ways.
Firstly, the vampire represents an intrusion of malevolent supematural agents into
hurnan affairs, and as such, it defies the scientific and theological laws of
mortaIity. Secondly, the vampire is simultaneously masculine and feminine (this
is not the same as alternately being masculine and feminine). When humans
encounter the vampire, they also encounter these symbolic manifestations of
impossîbrïify in one being. Thus, the vampire mediates between the rationality,
certainty, and routine habits of modem life, and the nightmarish dream world of
supematural, pseudo-sexual predators-