1. Dracula: History, Myth, and Literature

2. Transformations History: Vlad III Dracula 1431-1476
Literature: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Theatre: Dracula & 1927
Film: Nosferatu–Shadow of the Vampire modern day

3. History: Vlad III Dracula 1431-1476
Born: 1431 in Sighisoara, Transylvania
Dracula: “Son of the Dragon/Devil”
Second child of Vlad II Dracul, voivode of Walachia
Walachia: principality between the Danube and the Transylvanian Alps in southern Romania
Voivode (prince and military leader) for 3 separate periods: 1448, , and 1476
To Romanians: Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler)
To Turks: Kaziglu Bey (the Impaler Prince)
Impalement: preferred method of execution
Unified Walachia - resisted Ottoman advances
Killed while fighting Turks near Bucharest in 1476

4. History: Vlad III Dracula 1431-1476
During 2nd reign: murdered between 40,000 and 100,000 people by 1462
Mid-15th century: German, Russian, and Turkish pamphlets establish notoriety
The Frightening and Truly Extraordinary Story of a Wicked Blood-drinking Tyrant Called Prince Dracula.
Nuremberg, 1488: "He had a large pot made and boards with holes fastened over it and had people's heads shoved through there and imprisoned them in this. And he had the pot filled with water and a big fire made under the pot and thus let the people cry out pitiably until they were boiled quite to death.”
An immortal heroic icon
Never associated with vampires

5. Literature: Bram Stoker 1847-1912
November 8th, 1847: Abraham “Bram” Stoker born in Clontarf, Ireland
Attended Trinity College in Dublin
8 years of civil service
1872: First story, The Crystal Cup
1878: Begins managing Henry Irving at London’s Lyceum Theatre
1882: First book, Under the Sunset
1890: First novel, The Snake’s Pass
1897: Dracula published
April 20, 1912: Dies in London

6. Literature: Bram Stoker’s Influences 1890-1896
Researched eastern European vampire folklore (especially Transylvanian myths)
An Account of the Principalities of Walachia And Moldavia, An Extraordinary and Shocking History of a
Great Berserker Called Prince Dracula, and The Historie and Superstitions of Romantic Romania
The Un-dead and Count Wampyr
1890: Met Hungarian professor, Arminius Vanbery
Syphilis in Victorian England
Never set foot in Romania

7. Literature: Bram Stoker’s Influences 1890-1896

8. Literature: Bram Stoker’s Dracula 1897
Known as an epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used.
The word epistolary comes from the Latin word epistola, meaning a letter.
Authors use this device to add realism to their works.

9. Literature: Bram Stoker’s Dracula 1897
Significant plot changes
2nd only to the Bible in sales
Inspired over 700 films
Never been out of print
Translated into every major language in the world
Depicts good vs. evil

10. Literature: Bram Stoker’s Dracula 1897
The novel is considered a work of gothic fiction, specifically Victorian gothic.
Gothic fiction is a type of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance.
Although gothic fiction was no longer a dominant literary genre during the Victorian era, most would say that the genre was entering its most creative period.
Some examples of Victorian gothic writers:
Edgar Allan Poe
Charlotte and Emily Brontë (Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights)
Mary Shelley (Frankenstein)

11. Gothic Literature: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Gothic Elements Include:
A deserted (or sparsely inhabited) castle or mansion in a state of ruins
Labyrinths/mazes, dark corridors, and winding stairs filled with dusty cobwebs
Hidden tunnels/staircases, dungeons, underground passages, crypts
Limited lighting such as moonlight (usually a full moon), candles, flashlight, lantern
The setting is usually threatening natural landscapes, like rugged mountains, dark forests, or eerie moors, exhibiting stormy weather
Dark secrets surrounding some tormented soul who is left in isolation
Ominous omens and curses
Magic, supernatural manifestations, or the suggestion of the supernatural
A damsel in distress
The damsel’s rescuer; usually a lover
Horrifying (or terrifying) events or the threat of such happenings

12. Tone in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
The novel displays an overall dark tone. The
impact of Dracula’s actions create a bleak
outlook on the future. This tone allows the
triumph of the protagonists to be enhanced.
The characters, who are respectable and
overall good people, face this evil head on
and triumph. The tone helps to set the odds
against their success but they overcome it.

13. Imagery in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Imagery is heavily used in an effort to enhance the tone.
The setting of Dracula’s castle and its appearance is described in detail. Stoker uses horror so that the reader will remain interested in the plot. He utilizes imagery when describing how Dracula would suck the blood out of his victim and how he attempted to change Mina Harker into a vampire.

14. Voice in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Stoker utilizes a more personal voice. Rather than Stoker offering his own voice in the novel, the voice comes directly from the characters due to his writing style. The novel is composed of journal entries, letters, and newspaper clippings written by the protagonists. Through this, they offer their own opinions on the situation which may vary from highly optimistic to having a negative outlook on the probable outcome of the situation.
There isn’t one specific voice and this allows the reader to have a better understanding of what is taking place.
The novel is written so that the actions and thoughts of the protagonists are known in detail by the reader.

15. Importance of Irony in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Irony is not very important to the overall
plot in Dracula. Everything is described
and actually is as it seems.
The protagonists are good in every
aspect and the vampires are evil in
every aspect.
This novel is basically the battle between
good and evil with good prevailing.

16. Literature: the Count or the Voivode 1897
2 major differences
Count: Castle in Transylvanian Alps
Voivode: Castle in Walachia's foothills
Count: of Szekely blood, from the "northern country"
Voivode: of an older Walachian stock
2 Major Similarities
Count Dracula describes his royal heritage: "Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? [...] To us, for centuries, was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkeyland; aye, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard.“
Count Dracula alludes to an "ancestor" who "sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them!" Vlad III Dracula’s younger brother, Radu, surrendered Walachia to the Ottomans.

17. Literature: the Count or the Voivode 1897
Vlad Tepes
He was not very tall, but very stocky and strong, with a cold and terrible appearance, a strong and aquiline nose, swollen nostrils, a thin reddish face in which very long eyelashes framed large wide-open green eyes; the bushy black eyebrows made them appear threatening. His face and chin were shaven, but for a moustache. The swollen temples increased the bulk of his head. A bull's neck connected [with] his head to his body from which black curly locks hung on his wide-shouldered person.
--Niccolò Modrussa
Count Dracula
His face was strong -- a very strong -- aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temple, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years.
--Bram Stoker

18. Theatre: Dracula & 1927
1924: Dracula, by Hamilton Deane, premiered in Derby, England – popular 3 year tour
3 acts set mostly in a drawing room in London
Count: Raymond Huntley (2000+ performances)
Count: from cadaverous to charming
American entrepreneur, Horace Liveright, bought rights to the Deane production
John Balderston: young journalist/playwright assigned by Liveright to 'Americanize' Deane’s script
Toned down theatrical dialogue – structure remained
Huntley turned down role – Bela Lugosi hired (speech)
1927: Dracula opens in Fulton Theatre in New York City Runs for 33 weeks, earning over $2 million

19. Film: Nosferatu
Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grayens (The Undead, a Symphony of Horror)
Directed by F.W. Murnau ( )
German Expressionist cinema; silent
Earliest surviving vampire film
Max Schreck as Count Orlok – isolated, pathetic, and withdrawn
Murnau drew on popular Vampire lore and Stoker's novel (without permission)
Changed names and setting
Florence Stoker and the British Incorporated Society of Authors destroyed the original negatives and most of the prints
Wordy - journal entries, letters, etc.
Straightforward, unromantic, gruesome, cynical
Max Schreck myth

20. Film: Dracula & Horror of Dracula 1931 & 1958
Dracula (1931): D. Tod Browning
Dracula: Bela Lugosi (speech)
Script draws heavily on stage play
Dracula a suave, continental lover - handsome and charismatic
Victorian-era English aristocrat
Omits explicit sexuality
Horror of Dracula (1958): D. Terence Fisher
Dracula: Christopher Lee
Significant changes to novel

21. Film: Dracula 1992 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG-TwX5A49g
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Dracula was played by Gary Oldman
Dracula returns to England to try to find his lost love
Closest to the novel (characters and journal entries)
Supernatural Romance

22. Film: Other Interpretations 1979-2000
1979: Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht
(The Undead, Phantom of the Night) D. Werner Herzog, Count: Klaus Kinski
Set in Netherlands, not England
First film to portray Dracula as tragic figure
Dracula as “the plague" personified with
no romantic power over mortals
1995: Dracula, Dead and Loving It D. Mel Brooks, Count: Leslie Nielsen
Unpopular parody
2000: Wes Craven Presents: Dracula D. Patrick Lussier, Count: Gerard Butler
Set in America, modern day
2000: Shadow of the Vampire
D. E. Elias Merhige, Count: Willem Dafoe
The making of Murnau’s Nosferatu
Best Dracula Quotes (clips)

23. Film: Other Interpretations 1979-2000