The Creative Identity

Dracula : Bibliographical Resources – Part II

When I was an undergraduate, there was one thing that I wish had been said in crystal clear fashion: use the bibliography at the back of the books you're reading. It's the most obvious thing to do, isn't it? Yet, when you're new to writing essays and studying in a specific (read, critical) manner, certain practices are far from obvious. I remember sitting in the library with some friends in my first year and we would all stare at one another, wondering how on earth we could find out just a little bit more about what we were studying, above and beyond the two books that the lecturer had mentioned. So for Dracula, or any primary source you're working on, start from the back of the book in your hands. The two editions I mentioned last time are fantastic treasure troves of references which touch upon very many of the secondary resources you'll need. Today, however, I would like to flag up a few other texts that I found of particular interest in my early days, starting from Judith Halberstam's Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monstrosity. From Frankenstein to The Silence of the Lambs via Oscar Wilde and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this book has it all. Its greatest strength is an argument that is both elegant and lucid, as spelt out on the back cover, and yet far-reaching in its implications. For Dracula you need chapter 4, known as 'Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker's Dracula', which... Read more →

Dracula : Bibliographical Resources – Part I

If you're an undergraduate, stepping into the land of Dracula will seem daunting, and with good reason. While now you may be worrying that 2,500 words are very many, soon you will realise that you're zooming through paragraphs and that it is difficult to say something even remotely original about a text that has been talked about in all of its incarnations for decades. If you're a postgraduate, especially the PhD sort, you'll be able to investigate this novel in great depth, but certain observations (the bird's eye view sort) are best kept at the beginning of a thesis, where you set the scene for your argument. The purpose of this post is to provide you with specific reference materials that will support you whether you're writing a mere essay, a dissertation or a thesis. I am working on a comprehensive bibliography for vampire literature researchers, so if you have any questions, don't hesitate to drop me a line and I'll do what I can to help you. * There are numerous editions of Dracula out there and only recently I spotted another two hardbacks in my local bookshop. Some are illustrated, comic book-like, others are merely more elegant versions with decorated covers. But if you're working on this novel, and not merely reading it, I find that only two are really necessary. Dracula Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Maurice Hindle and Preface by Christopher Frayling, Penguin revised edition 2003, this one. This includes a preface, chronology, introduction,... Read more →

Bram Stoker's Dracula – Part III

Bram Stoker Part I is right here and II is here Vampiric sex becomes an irresistible and absolute contamination or indeed the expression of a universal disorder where it is not merely the confines of common moral sexuality that are obliterated but even the sacred separation between life and death in a sort of supernatural, cosmic violation that defies the very laws of nature. However, to define the sexuality of the vampire is to produce more vampirism, or indeed to stabilise the idea of perversity, as Judith Halberstam observes in ‘Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker’s Dracula’. 'This would overlook Gothic novels’ ability to create monsters that are never unitary but an aggregation of different elements, in Dracula’s case, ‘monster and man, feminine and powerful, parasitical and wealthy; he is repulsive and fascinating, he exerts the consummate gaze but is scrutinized in all things, he lives forever but can be killed. Dracula is indeed not simply a monster but a technology of monstrosity’ (1995: 88). Yet, if the erotic theme mixed with a fear of the foreign and the unknown was already present in classical literature and legends and was then utilised again by the first authors who turned the vampire into a charming, if terrifying, creature, Stoker’s novel adds an original trait to the issue in light of Victorian positivism, which had been so deeply affected by the mere existence of Dracula within itself. Although the author accepts the supernatural nature of the monster, he seeks at the same time... Read more →

Bram Stoker's Dracula – Part II

Part I is right here The threat is not so much focused on inversion, as on total unity and on the possibility that the male may be ‘unsexed’ and penetrated on two levels, the physical one and the figurative one. The latter sees the emasculation of the good, brave men at the hand of the usurper from the foreign land. This is precisely what lies at the core of the book: Dracula’s abilities in the land of the living are so all-encompassing and authoritative because they are profoundly related to the most basic laws that govern human interactions. In other words, what makes him so potent is the same quality that weakens all other men: his sexual aura. As Judith Weissman noted in ‘Dracula as a Victorian novel’: The difference between the sexuality of Dracula and the women vampires is […] the key to the psychological meaning of the book. For him, sex is power; for them it is desire. He is the man whom all other men fear, the man who can, without loss of freedom or power himself, seduce other men’s women and make them sexually insatiable with a sexual performance that the others cannot match. (Carter, 1988: 76) The desire of the females, be these the three vampires who attempt the seduction of Jonathan, or Lucy, who fends off three suitors only to be gang-raped by all of them with an impressive phallic instrument (Showalter, 1989: 181) is juxtaposed to power and command. This is proven by... Read more →

Bram Stoker's Dracula – Part I

My fascination with vampires began as a form of rejection to Little Women. The teacher at school had told my mum that I could not read very well and that I would benefit from practising at home. And so mum, ever zealous when it came to my education, had me read out loud a chapter a day. I didn't like the book. The characters annoyed me. The setting was decrepit and as conceptually irrelevant to my life as it could be. As I was going through it, my mind often wandered to the day when I could read for myself, not 'age-appropriate' stuff, but rather what I really wanted to read. The time came soon enough, when I was eleven, and I finally got my hands on Dracula and Frankenstein. The latter did not impress me much (ironic, considering how much Frankenstein I inserted in my PhD which, really, is about vampire literature and the romanticisation of imagination), but the former changed my life. Much as remembrances of Carmilla still thrill me to this day, it all started with Bram Stoker's seminal novel. From then on, I actively sought information about Dracula in all its incarnations. When Bram Stoker's Dracula by Ford Coppola was released in 1992, I recall being disgusted by the travesty it represented. In it the Prince of Darkness is a romanticised figure we are made to empathise with, not the repulsive beast that Stoker depicted many decades previously. It was only fifteen years later that I... Read more →