I have realised that an academic blog is going to be filled with jargon and discipline specific language, that most readers just won’t know about without a guide. So here is my attempt at a living and growing encyclopedia for the academic world of vampires. As I go, I will try to connect these terms to the posts they exist in, just so people can learn these things as they read my posts. It will also save time so that I don’t constantly give definitions for terms over and over again.
In reference to the Irish author who wrote the 1897 novel Dracula. His novel is seminal in vampirology, and marks a significant shift in how people portray and view vampires. When someone refers to something as Stokeresque, they typically discuss the narrative tropes that came out of Dracula or the attributes associated with the Count himself.
This type of vampire is named because the archetype is based off of the infamous Lord Byron. The archetype originated in John Polidori’s The Vampyre, where the vampire Lord Ruthven is based off of Polidori’s patient Lord Byron. They are typically cast as aristocratic or at least incredibly powerful men, who manipulate those around them Read More
This archetype of vampire refers to the 1872 novella by Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu about a female vampire that preys on other women. As such, these vampires have a specific quality that makes them distinguished from their literary counterparts; i.e. their attraction to the same sex. As Carmilla is a female vampire, this classification Read More
Refers to the vampires that were around prior to the literary boom that made them popular in the West. They typically come from specific regions of the world, and their attributes are telling of the values within that culture. These vampires have many names and different attributes, but all of them are classified or identified Read More
This term does not mean that the vampire itself is Romantic in nature. Rather, it refers to the Romantic literary period when the idea of vampires changed from their folkloric traditions. Important works from this time include but are not limited to: Dracula, The Vampyre, and Carmilla.
While the vampire is typically the Shadow of the story or myth, the 1970s saw a reciprocal shift in the way vampires were seen. A Sympathetic vampire may hold all of the somatic and symbolic aspects of the vampire; yet does not represent a malicious version of the Shadow. Rather, a Sympathetic vampire is supposed Read More
One of the many archetypes that are postulated by Swiss philosopher Carl Jung, the Shadow is important in my distinction of what a vampire is. In short, the Shadow archetype is a character or being in a story that reflects the darker parts of either the protagonist or the society/culture they are in. And more Read More
In reference to the eccentric Dutch professor from Dracula, this character archetype refers to the scientific/religious figure that leads a vampire hunt. They don’t need to know what a vampire is at first, but they are the character that does the research and ultimately informs the human characters what a vampire is in that given Read More