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The Rise of the Vampire
by
Before Bella and Edward; Stefan and Damon Salvatore; and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, there was Lestat and Louis, The Lost Boys, and Buffy Summers. Before True Blood and Let the Right One In, there was Dark Shadows and Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. And then there is the most prominent of them all: Dracula, immortalized by Bram Stoker in 1897. Whether they’re evil, bl
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Hardcover, 175 pages
Published
May 15th 2013
by Reaktion Books
(first published January 1st 2013)
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There's some interesting information in this book about the history of vampire stories, and some of the detailed analyses of the older and more contemporary books and films and tv is insightful. However, I was a little underwhelmed that there wasn't a more deep exploration of the phenomenon, in other words, the sociology of vampire story consumption, rather than what seems to be almost exclusively a textual analysis. The tone of the writing is also a little scattered. The author seems to be unsu
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a good overview of vampire history! but not much insight that? i felt really Opened my Vampire mind but perhaps thats just b/c ive been doing a lot of vampire research so already feel comfortable w a lot of the Vampire is the Other Haha point! but it didnt go enough into the intersectional connotations of what vampires Are and the anxities they represent: just kinda talked abt .... that they exist in culture lol... which like..... we know haha... like Briefly talked abt problematic elemetns in a
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Didn't finish it. It was very interesting and well written, but as soon as I got the point I got bored.
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7/10; an interesting overview of the history of vampires that would have been well served by going into more depth; but did a good job for what it was and gave me plenty to think about.
Just finished reading Erik Butler's The Rise of the Vampire (London: Reaktion Books, 2013). Butler's book is a study of the vampire in art, literature and film. He suggests the vampire arose from a place between the rise of the West and the East and that it became a symbol of peasant resistance. There are a lot of interesting ideas in this short book, that are never really fleshed out. His premise about the rise of the vampire had me thinking about the vampire as a symbol for all that lays benea
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A well-written exploration of the emergence of the vampire in fiction, excellently surveying both the Victorian era genre-classics, the films of the 20s and 30s, and some stand-out contemporary authors such as Anne Rice and Stephanie Meyer. A quick, but insightful read, useful for anyone interested in the intersections between literature, folklore, and popular culture in modern Europe and the United States. Another perk of the book are its illustrations and photographs reproduced from the books
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Why does this book exist? It doesn't say anything that hasn't already been said in more detail and with more depth. Oh, and, dear author, *The Hunger* was a book before it was a 80s movie. I'm just saying.
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Spans their folktale origins to current media saturation--scholarly theory as to of why the once vile vampires have been romanticized to popularity.
I thought that this book was somewhat lacking. Butler's knowledge is extremely strong in some areas (Carmilla, Lord Ruthven etc), but simplistic and surface level in others. His analysis of vampirism and queer culture was extremely stunted, and he didn't seem to get into the long-established tradition of using vampires as a literary tool to explore sexual fluidity, freedom and early homosexuality. Obviously this was touched on, but not explored as in-depth as it could have been. Also, the author
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