The Vampyre by John Polidori

The Vampyre by John Polidori




Lord Byron influenced Polidori’s work. He influenced poets like Edgar Allen Poe, Nikolai Gogol, Alexandre Dumas, and Alexis Tolstoy. “The Vampyre,” created a new image of vampires between sexual and dying. In Lord Byron’s ex-lover Lady Caroline Lamb words, Byronic hero means “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” Some characteristics of a Byronic hero is social and sexual dominance and a troubled past. One characteristic I found interesting was a vampire “over dramatizing oneself.” (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki.php/Main/ByronicHero).

I think it will be interesting to see during the course of the semester what vampires carry what different characteristics of a Byronic hero. Polidori was an English writer and physician. Lord Byron was one of his clients. Polidori wrote a tale on Lord Byron, he played the character Lord Ruthven. Lord Byron was often credited for The Vamprye, even though it was agreed between the both of them that Polidori should take the credit for The Vampyre.

According to Robert Southey, the Satanic School led by Lord Byron and Shelly were writers who only wrote about vampires and other satanic characters. I think that these young writers were originally “Goth kids,” because of the influence they held in early gothic literature. As well as, the effect they hold on modern gothic literature today.

In this story I would characterize “high society,” in the fact that these characters were above humans. They had powers that humans could never possess. They had an effect on people that no one else would. For example they would make love with different people and kill them and it was never found out about.

Paranoid gothic signifies an oath held between partners that is shared and chosen. I think that paranoid gothic means that two partners were emotionally involved with each other and they depended on each other strengths. I think that this could have been a metaphor in the fact that Lord Byron and Polidori could have been homosexual partners but they hid it in these passages by using different characters.

I found it interesting on page eighteen it says that vampires rather have friendships then be married. In families that have Christian beliefs believe that homosexuals are not supposed to be together, that it should be man and women together only. So it is kind of like vampires not believing in marriage and wanting friendship more then anything.

From just the beginning I had already concluded that all vampires are different and that each vampire had its own characteristic and they each had their own ways of doing things. There wasn’t really a set way of how they lived their life. For example one vampire devours his favorite daughter and she blesses her father as she dies. I believe some vampires wouldn’t touch their family.

I found this article to be very interesting. I feel like I learned a lot about vampires and there back round. I also feel like I learned a lot of the different characteristics of vampires that I didn’t know. I found it a little hard to understand at first, but I think I have got a grip on it now. I never knew that some vampires are homosexual. I am excited to learn more about vampires.