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 is assistant professor of German Studies at Emory University, where he also teaches comparative literature and film.

ISBN: 9781571134325
ISBN-10: 1571134328
Classification: Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 , Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 , Literary studies: from c 1900 -
Format: Hardback (229mm x 152mm x 17mm)
Pages: 240
Imprint: Camden House Inc
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Publish Date: 1-Mar-2010
Country of Publication: United States