The Evolution of Vampires: How GROTESQUE Monsters Became Romantic

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  • Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
  • Vampire romance is all the rage. Countless books, movies, a tv shows have been made where predatory, demonic monsters of the past are made into an erotic turn-on: Stephenie Meyer’s The Twilight Saga, Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, L.J. Smith’s The Vampire Diaries are just some of the most well known in this ever-expanding genre.
    To borrow a line attributed to Stalin, if only one book or movie like this had been made it would have been seen as tragic, scandalous, and insane. But hundreds of vampire romances have flooded the market, so it’s normal no one questions it or bats an eye lash.
    Shocking as it may seem, vampires weren't always seen this way. People didn’t always want to hook up with and/or settle down and live happily ever after with the undead.
    In the beginning, the first vampires of legend were far more like grotesque zombies than James Dean. The folklore of the vampire really began in the middle ages when people started believing in things called revenants. A revenant was essentially a human being who had died and come back from the dead to prey on family members and friends, perhaps out of vengeance, or simple malevolence. In South Eastern Europe, these revenants came to be known as vampires, and by the time of the enlightenment, vampire panics were in full swing across the continent, attracting the attention of rulers like the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, as well as the fascination of scholars and intellectuals like the French philosopher Voltaire.
    The question is, How did we get from zombie to teen romance heart-throb?
    It all comes down to one man, and one night in the summer of 1816.
    That man was George Gordon, Lord Byron.
    Sources
    Byron’s Poetry and Prose: A Norton Critical Edition
    www.public.asu....
    www.unicorngard...
    archive.org/de...
    news.bbc.co.uk/local/nottingham/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8517000/8517132.stm
    Gagool by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommon...
    Source: incompetech.com...
    Artist: incompetech.com/

Комментарии • 37

  • @austenl43
    @austenl43 3 года назад +15

    That Kierkegaard quote about true thinkers not producing works of art but rather *are* works of art is amazing. One of the best lines I've heard in some time! Thank you for including it and producing a fascinating and illuminating piece on vampires! Hell yea

  • @GabrielWilliamsOfficial
    @GabrielWilliamsOfficial 3 года назад +41

    the channel is so good, exactly what RUclips needs.

    • @EmpireoftheMind
      @EmpireoftheMind  3 года назад +3

      You’re too kind!

    • @ateto
      @ateto 3 года назад +1

      And it's getting better.

    • @CrimsonPhantom88
      @CrimsonPhantom88 3 года назад

      Which means he'll soon be banned.

    • @constancemiller3753
      @constancemiller3753 2 года назад

      Yes, and I thought "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" was Oscar Wilde. Learn something new every day.

  • @ivandovranic5834
    @ivandovranic5834 3 года назад +7

    "How did it come to this?"
    Just as l was about to type 'Romanticism', you've put lord Byron on screen.

  • @SquigglesZero
    @SquigglesZero 2 года назад +14

    And his daughter had even greater impact on our modern world. What a family.

  • @abrahemsamander3967
    @abrahemsamander3967 3 года назад +17

    This is the best history of the literary vampire I’ve ever listened too. Very clear and conscise! It also shows just how influential that night of romance authors telling ghost stories truly was.

  • @Master_Blackthorne
    @Master_Blackthorne 8 месяцев назад +4

    One the most important videos about the literary vampire I have ever seen.

  • @LynetteTheMadScientist
    @LynetteTheMadScientist 2 месяца назад +1

    For quite some time now I’ve thought that vampires seem to narratively represent choosing a worldly immortality over one’s own humanity. They fear death and eternal punishment so much that they embody death and prey on others for their own petty pleasure. Our post-sexual revolution society venerates the decadent and youthful (immaturity) so of course it would also venerate vampires. The Lost Boys touches on this a bit.

  • @ILoveCatsSoMuch4352
    @ILoveCatsSoMuch4352 Год назад +3

    I don’t want to sex a vampire… I wanna BE A VAMPIRE. It seems fun instead of just rotting in a grave. Who knows maybe I have been listening to too much MCR

  • @susansprague7304
    @susansprague7304 3 года назад +8

    Fascinating, thank you. I'm sorry to say that I believe there's also an element of evolutionary biology in the allure - being drawn to strong, dangerous (ie. protective) potential mates.

    • @The_Crimson_Fucker
      @The_Crimson_Fucker 3 года назад

      You'd be surprised how often the allure of the dangerous is less in the protective and more in the destructive.

    • @dibdap2373
      @dibdap2373 3 года назад +1

      Dark triad traits.

  • @jacobbear8533
    @jacobbear8533 3 года назад +7

    Thinkers do indeed live the richest lives although in today’s age of information it can also be said that ignorance is bliss. May I recommend a novel to you, it’s the best satire I’ve read written by a 20th century polymath. Hilaire Belloc “ The Mercy of Allah” , it concerns business rather than religion and I think you’d get a lot out of it.

    • @EmpireoftheMind
      @EmpireoftheMind  3 года назад +3

      Absolutely. Thanks for the recommendation. Just downloaded it on Kindle, and I’ll give it a read. Thanks!

    • @susansprague7304
      @susansprague7304 3 года назад +1

      I had a much-loved book of his poetry from a very early age. You've inspired me to look up more of his writing.

    • @InvaderTak176
      @InvaderTak176 2 года назад

      I perfer a modest proposal in all honestly

    • @jacobbear8533
      @jacobbear8533 2 года назад

      @@InvaderTak176 cheers dude, just looked it up and I’ll definitely be reading that. Much obliged

  • @schizoidboy
    @schizoidboy 3 дня назад

    Of course it isn't just the male versions but also the female versions. The story of Carmilla, where there is a female vampire that feeds on young women, also took inspiration from the same novel that Dr. Podiori, which lead to the female version of the vampire that is also seductive.

  • @RebecaLawrence-w6e
    @RebecaLawrence-w6e 26 дней назад

    Vampires go way back. Lord Byron. Has a lot to do. With the way vampires now. The one that people fall in l😢😢😢ove with. This is the guy. Mary Shelley and her husband. Was staying with. When Frankenstein was born. 🧛🦇

  • @to_be_consumed
    @to_be_consumed Месяц назад

    I think vampires are also hot n sexy bc of what they represent (the evil of temptation and even homosexuality). From Carmilla to the Vampire Chronicles vampires have been queer and as society has become more accepting of queer people, the stories have gone from condemning queerness to representing it, both in actual content and in readers' interpretations. So its kind of this idea of wanting something people believe you shouldn't want (attraction to the same sex) so that attraction becomes something monstrous preying on you, which over time became giving into it (and maybe your own monstrous nature). Part of it is that you want to give into it. that's why it's framed as a seduction in popular vampire media like Dracula or iwtv. My other running theory is that they are human folklore and humans want to fuck things.

  • @cookies.358
    @cookies.358 3 месяца назад

    OFCOURSE ITS BYRON! who is associated with this!

  • @enriccoc7794
    @enriccoc7794 2 месяца назад

    you could maybe argue that drinking out of a human skull is anti-social or misanthropic but it certainly isn't evil.

  • @n990
    @n990 Год назад +1

    That was so interesting and beyond what I expected… I spent a few weeks on the island of Ithaka, Greece, Lord Byron territory… but good god! All of these connections are so defined down to a hand full of noteworthy people attempting to scare each other… thank you

  • @audreydimmel6674
    @audreydimmel6674 3 года назад +6

    I love Byron's poetry, and I always thought that he lived a really...interesting...life. I guess he is unfortunately also responsible for the monstrosity that is Twilight. 😂

    • @phillipstroll7385
      @phillipstroll7385 11 месяцев назад +1

      Except Byron didn't write it. John William Polidori did. Byron did tell the publishers that the works were turned in by a guest at his home with the assumption that he wrote the works, but he actually didn't, Polidori did. The publishers would have none of it. Upon which Polidori was driven to commit unalive after Byron fleeced him of his finances, home, creations and even his name. Polidori actually wrote it about Byron. Using this around him and sucking the life and finances right it of them.
      I'm guessing Byron had brain rot. I can't imagine an emotionally mentally healthy person tossing away his children, bedding his sister to the point of both their damnation, and known for nothing but hedonism. He wasn't even thought of at all until he inherited the title lord.
      He had nothing, was nothing and when you have absolutely nothing to lose is easy to be an intellectual standing upon one's principles, or lack there of. Because it's all you have and the one thing that can't be stripped away. They fade away with maturity alone. Funny how even Byron denounced himself and his behavoir before he died. Claiming he'd do it all differently given half the chance.

    • @phillipstroll7385
      @phillipstroll7385 11 месяцев назад +2

      Even Percy was originally given credit for Frankenstein. It wasn't until Mary left Percy and he father published a second run of Frankenstein that she was given her due and credited with authorship. Upon the release of the second run Percy attended a party and told the truth that it was in fact Mary who wrote Frankenstein, not he. She then took him back and lived him madly until her death.

  • @chipperjones3112
    @chipperjones3112 Год назад +1

    Fascinating

  • @Inspector-Chisholm
    @Inspector-Chisholm Год назад

    While it's fine to say that intellectuals live the richest lives, wouldn't you agree that while it's fine for Lord Byron to live that life, for ordinary non Lord's, trying to live that life just leads to poverty and regret?

  • @markwrede8878
    @markwrede8878 Год назад

    Grotesque saviors would make cannibals of all Gentiles.

  • @Frey808
    @Frey808 3 года назад +1

    That's hilarious and completely believable!!!

  • @stevenpaddybwoy
    @stevenpaddybwoy 3 года назад +2

    JOOOZ

  • @awildtomappeared5925
    @awildtomappeared5925 3 года назад +4

    2:10 "vampires, that is to say, leeches" tldr vampires are sexy because socialists want socialists (leeches) to be sexy solved!

  • @katrinaisalwayscorrect
    @katrinaisalwayscorrect Год назад

    Jordan peterson has some great insights into this as well.

  • @zsedcftglkjh
    @zsedcftglkjh 3 года назад

    Females