The ‘Good Vampire’ Archetype: A Brief Incursion into the Origins of Vampire Stories
Monday, December 15th, 2008There is a new vampire movie in town called Twilight. Twilight is built on a best-selling novel featuring a forbidden love between a mortal girl, Bella, and an immortal vampire, Edward (1). Like Angel in the series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the vampire-boy Edward is haunted by his own immortality and ‘stuck between two worlds’. Edward is the newest (and perhaps cleanest) of the breed that I would call the ‘good vampires’: he is an innocent as he has inherited his vampirism from his parents and, to top it all, avoids drinking human blood at all costs. His image made me think of the tendency in today’s pop culture to portray romantic, good vampires. Coppola’s Dracula, vampire Louis in Interview with the Vampire or Buffy’s Angel immediately spring to mind. This led me to wonder: what is the prototype of the ‘good vampire’? To find out, I thought to go back to the source of modern vampire stories. At the end of the line I re-discovered one legendary summer night back in 1816.
On a dark and stormy night in Switzerland, a few illustrious friends met at Lord Byron’s Villa Dorati (2). Amongst the invitees the most well known were Percy Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley; a less famous character was Dr. Polidori. Lord Byron came up with the idea of a contest: each should write their own supernatural tale. Out of this competition originated Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Yet, there was a second book that today is almost forgotten: Dr. Polidori’s The Vampyre. It is ironic that one rainy night could spawn two major twentieth century pop myths: Frankenstein and the Vampire (later called Dracula).
