Scholarlink

This chapter will look at the evolution and ongoing influence of the moon on the vampire genre. The moon(light), even when it is not specifically mentioned or made visible in the story, is a core structural element of many vampire narratives. It is a defining feature not only for the vampire but also for other actors within the story, who can be conceptualised in relation to the moon and defined with moon-related terms: as solar or lunar or something in-between. As the vampire has travelled from Eastern European folklore into mainstream Western culture, the narrative has shifted. Its triangle structure of Monster (Vampire), Victim (usually innocent female), and Hero (Western male) has been designed to express a particular modern (Western) worldview. This sees a dangerous foreign Other attacking Western society by seducing its women. The link between the vampire and the moon was rather blurred in Eastern European folklore: vampires (upyrs, upiórs) were not even necessarily creatures of the night (Kozak, Upiór. Historia naturalna. Evviva l’Arte, Warszawa, 2021). Vampire fiction, however, has been linking night to the vampire and day (defined by sunlight) to the hero(es). Consequently, the hero(es) within vampire fiction have been called “The Crew of Light” (Craft 1997) or “solar heroes” (Janion, Wampir. Biografia symboliczna, Słowo/Obraz/Terytoria, Gdańsk, 2002). They represent civilisation, science (enlightenment), and humanity, whilst in contrast the vampire is a lunar, night(marish) creature, representing dangerous untamed nature, non-Western/non-civilised backwardness, and animality. And further, the solar is seen as male and masculine, while the lunar is seen as feminine and transgressive. Much of this configuration still persists into the twenty-first century so that the Moon has remained a key element of the good/bad divide in vampire narratives. Here, the “Good Guy Vampire” as defined by Margaret L. Carter can still be described in terms of the lunar monster who turns into a solar hero to offer his victim/lover a new/old form of love. It is not coincidental then that the titles of the most successful vampire novel series of the twenty-first century (and their subsequent films) exemplify a progression of the lunar into the solar; New Moon; Eclipse; Breaking Dawn; and that its creatures of the night sparkle in the sunlight.

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Children of the Night’s Light: Moon as a Structuring Element of Vampire Fiction—From Polidori’s The Vampyre to the Twilight Series

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2025年

查看全文
  • Patrycja Pichnicka-Trivedi

摘要

This chapter will look at the evolution and ongoing influence of the moon on the vampire genre. The moon(light), even when it is not specifically mentioned or made visible in the story, is a core structural element of many vampire narratives. It is a defining feature not only for the vampire but also for other actors within the story, who can be conceptualised in relation to the moon and defined with moon-related terms: as solar or lunar or something in-between. As the vampire has travelled from Eastern European folklore into mainstream Western culture, the narrative has shifted. Its triangle structure of Monster (Vampire), Victim (usually innocent female), and Hero (Western male) has been designed to express a particular modern (Western) worldview. This sees a dangerous foreign Other attacking Western society by seducing its women. The link between the vampire and the moon was rather blurred in Eastern European folklore: vampires (upyrs, upiórs) were not even necessarily creatures of the night (Kozak, Upiór. Historia naturalna. Evviva l’Arte, Warszawa, 2021). Vampire fiction, however, has been linking night to the vampire and day (defined by sunlight) to the hero(es). Consequently, the hero(es) within vampire fiction have been called “The Crew of Light” (Craft 1997) or “solar heroes” (Janion, Wampir. Biografia symboliczna, Słowo/Obraz/Terytoria, Gdańsk, 2002). They represent civilisation, science (enlightenment), and humanity, whilst in contrast the vampire is a lunar, night(marish) creature, representing dangerous untamed nature, non-Western/non-civilised backwardness, and animality. And further, the solar is seen as male and masculine, while the lunar is seen as feminine and transgressive. Much of this configuration still persists into the twenty-first century so that the Moon has remained a key element of the good/bad divide in vampire narratives. Here, the “Good Guy Vampire” as defined by Margaret L. Carter can still be described in terms of the lunar monster who turns into a solar hero to offer his victim/lover a new/old form of love. It is not coincidental then that the titles of the most successful vampire novel series of the twenty-first century (and their subsequent films) exemplify a progression of the lunar into the solar; New Moon; Eclipse; Breaking Dawn; and that its creatures of the night sparkle in the sunlight.