The Vampyre, by John Polidori.
I first came across The Vampyre when I was studying English at university. My tutor, Dr. Markman Ellis, an expert in eighteenth century and gothic literature, introduced me to what he called ‘the original vampire story.’ I was hooked and listened to everything he said after that. This hatched my interest in the literary obscure; those books which have slipped down the back of the mainstream bookshelf but very firmly deserve an audience.
The tale of how Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was produced has become a literary legend: on 16th June 1816, Byron was entertaining Percy Byshee Shelley and Mary at the Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Geneva. The Shelleys were unable to return to where they were staying that evening in Chapuis because of a dramatic change in the weather, so Byron invited them to spend the night at the villa. As the night wore on and the storms - caused by the eruption of the volcano Tambora in Indonesia - became increasingly violent, the group took turns in reading aloud stories from the Fantasmagoriana, a collection of German ghost stories. This inspired Byron to challenge his companions to each write a ghost story of their own. Although determined to rise to the challenge, for two days Mary was unable to find inspiration, until she apparently had a ‘waking dream’ where she saw the figure of Frankenstein’s monster come alive and the horror on the face of his creator. And so The Modern Prometheus was born.
But what of the other ‘ghost stories’ to have emerged from that dark and stormy night? Percy Shelley and Mary’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont, both failed to produce stories. Byron wrote part of a story entitled ‘Augustus Darvell’ and John Polidori, Byron’s friend and personal physician, started his novel, Ernestus Berchtold.
Two years later an anonymous package arrived at the New Monthly Magazine. It contained information about the kind of activities Byron and Shelley engaged in by Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816, which had been a subject of some fascination and discussion during the previous two years; Byron had something of a reputation and was at the time the worlds most famous living writer, so there was much excitement that the package also contained a story which appeared to have been written by him, The Vampyre. The story contained many references to some of Byron’s best known poems and the main character, Lord Ruthven, seemed to be based on Byron himself. However, it soon transpired that The Vampyre was not written by Byron, but by his companion and doctor, John Polidori.
Polidori uses the eighteenth century convention of the grand tour as a device for opening out the two main characters to the reader and as we follow Lord Ruthven and Aubrey across Europe, we accompany them on a journey of discovering the true nature of one another. This is a truly chilling and sinister part of The Vampyre which sets the tension and atmosphere for the rest of the story. Written in response to Byron’s ‘Augustus Darvell’, the central idea of which is a character who arranges for his impending death to be concealed by the man with whom he is travelling, Polidori develops this idea in The Vampyre so that the promise to conceal the death is a relatively small aspect of the story, but the consequences are devastating. The promise itself only comes once the tension of the story has already been well established; the true identity of the mysterious Lord Ruthven, which we ponder along with his friend and travelling companion, Aubrey. Despite the title of the story and the description of Ruthven as having a “..deadly hue of his face, which never gained a warmer tint, either from the blush of modesty, or from the strong emotion of passion, though its form and outline were beautiful.” Polidori manages to keep us from deciding whether his primary character is a vampire, or if we are deliberately being led into a literary trap, almost until the end of the story. The building of tension and character, not to mention circumstance, is so utterly convincing that when the hideous consequences of the promise begin to unfold, we do not question why the promise is not broken, but simply empathise with the characters involved. And being able to put yourself in the position of characters in a vampire story has got to be an achievement worth applauding in itself, especially at the beginning of the twenty-first century when the vampire is rarely used as a figure for creating true horror but more often as a device for rather camp and sardonic thriller.
As Dr. Ellis pointed out, The Vampyre was the original vampire story. Before Polidori’s ‘ghost story’, tales of vampires and nosferatu were still largely confined to the eastern parts of Europe where incidences of such beings were part of local myth and legend. The huge success of The Vampyre began an obsession and curiosity about vampires which appears to still be in place today. It is a hugely important work of literature which should be a household name. Without The Vampyre, there would be no Dracula, who we tend to think of as the epitome of vampirism. But the vampire as intelligent and cultured, even as aristocratic, was the invention of Polidori. He took the European folklore of the nosferatu - the undead predator - and transformed it into what we now consider to be the standard of the image of a vampire.
Reading The Vampyre today has the same effect on me as it did the first time I read it. Apart from being a fascinating idea dealt with in a highly original manner, it reminds me of when I was eight years old, hiding behind a cushion when there were Daleks on Dr. Who, but being unable to stop myself from watching, if even with only one half open eye. You know what is coming but you keep watching anyway, hoping right until the last minute that something will happen, some twist you would never have thought of strides in and changes the course of events. As you read The Vampyre - which I believe is the original page turner - you have your suspicions about what is going to happen but you hope to the pit of your stomach that you are wrong. Is your hope in vain? You will have to read The Vampyre to find out.
________________
John Polidori, The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre.
Oxford World Classics. Pb. pp.306. £6.99.
The tale of how Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was produced has become a literary legend: on 16th June 1816, Byron was entertaining Percy Byshee Shelley and Mary at the Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Geneva. The Shelleys were unable to return to where they were staying that evening in Chapuis because of a dramatic change in the weather, so Byron invited them to spend the night at the villa. As the night wore on and the storms - caused by the eruption of the volcano Tambora in Indonesia - became increasingly violent, the group took turns in reading aloud stories from the Fantasmagoriana, a collection of German ghost stories. This inspired Byron to challenge his companions to each write a ghost story of their own. Although determined to rise to the challenge, for two days Mary was unable to find inspiration, until she apparently had a ‘waking dream’ where she saw the figure of Frankenstein’s monster come alive and the horror on the face of his creator. And so The Modern Prometheus was born.
But what of the other ‘ghost stories’ to have emerged from that dark and stormy night? Percy Shelley and Mary’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont, both failed to produce stories. Byron wrote part of a story entitled ‘Augustus Darvell’ and John Polidori, Byron’s friend and personal physician, started his novel, Ernestus Berchtold.
Two years later an anonymous package arrived at the New Monthly Magazine. It contained information about the kind of activities Byron and Shelley engaged in by Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816, which had been a subject of some fascination and discussion during the previous two years; Byron had something of a reputation and was at the time the worlds most famous living writer, so there was much excitement that the package also contained a story which appeared to have been written by him, The Vampyre. The story contained many references to some of Byron’s best known poems and the main character, Lord Ruthven, seemed to be based on Byron himself. However, it soon transpired that The Vampyre was not written by Byron, but by his companion and doctor, John Polidori.
Polidori uses the eighteenth century convention of the grand tour as a device for opening out the two main characters to the reader and as we follow Lord Ruthven and Aubrey across Europe, we accompany them on a journey of discovering the true nature of one another. This is a truly chilling and sinister part of The Vampyre which sets the tension and atmosphere for the rest of the story. Written in response to Byron’s ‘Augustus Darvell’, the central idea of which is a character who arranges for his impending death to be concealed by the man with whom he is travelling, Polidori develops this idea in The Vampyre so that the promise to conceal the death is a relatively small aspect of the story, but the consequences are devastating. The promise itself only comes once the tension of the story has already been well established; the true identity of the mysterious Lord Ruthven, which we ponder along with his friend and travelling companion, Aubrey. Despite the title of the story and the description of Ruthven as having a “..deadly hue of his face, which never gained a warmer tint, either from the blush of modesty, or from the strong emotion of passion, though its form and outline were beautiful.” Polidori manages to keep us from deciding whether his primary character is a vampire, or if we are deliberately being led into a literary trap, almost until the end of the story. The building of tension and character, not to mention circumstance, is so utterly convincing that when the hideous consequences of the promise begin to unfold, we do not question why the promise is not broken, but simply empathise with the characters involved. And being able to put yourself in the position of characters in a vampire story has got to be an achievement worth applauding in itself, especially at the beginning of the twenty-first century when the vampire is rarely used as a figure for creating true horror but more often as a device for rather camp and sardonic thriller.
As Dr. Ellis pointed out, The Vampyre was the original vampire story. Before Polidori’s ‘ghost story’, tales of vampires and nosferatu were still largely confined to the eastern parts of Europe where incidences of such beings were part of local myth and legend. The huge success of The Vampyre began an obsession and curiosity about vampires which appears to still be in place today. It is a hugely important work of literature which should be a household name. Without The Vampyre, there would be no Dracula, who we tend to think of as the epitome of vampirism. But the vampire as intelligent and cultured, even as aristocratic, was the invention of Polidori. He took the European folklore of the nosferatu - the undead predator - and transformed it into what we now consider to be the standard of the image of a vampire.
Reading The Vampyre today has the same effect on me as it did the first time I read it. Apart from being a fascinating idea dealt with in a highly original manner, it reminds me of when I was eight years old, hiding behind a cushion when there were Daleks on Dr. Who, but being unable to stop myself from watching, if even with only one half open eye. You know what is coming but you keep watching anyway, hoping right until the last minute that something will happen, some twist you would never have thought of strides in and changes the course of events. As you read The Vampyre - which I believe is the original page turner - you have your suspicions about what is going to happen but you hope to the pit of your stomach that you are wrong. Is your hope in vain? You will have to read The Vampyre to find out.
________________
John Polidori, The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre.
Oxford World Classics. Pb. pp.306. £6.99.
posted by Annabel at 9:30 am
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