Wednesday, June 24, 2009

[BellaAndEdward] Edward Cullen's Ancestors: The Greatest Pre-Twilight Vampires [Part 1]



Edward Cullen's Ancestors:

The Greatest Pre-Twilight Vampires [Part 1]

http://www.examiner.com/x-13268-Boston-Speculative-Fiction-Examiner~y2009m6d15-Edwards-ancestors-the-greatest-preTwilight-vampires-part-1

June 15, 2009  -- 11:15 PM
 

Since Twilight was first published in 2005, Stephanie Meyer's vampire-werewolf teen romance saga has slowly but surely invaded American culture. The four books and subsequent movie adaptations have spawned a cult-like following of teenage girls and women, most of whom believe that Edward Cullen is the hottest, prettiest, sparkliest vampire ever ever ever. "Forget princess; I want to be a vampire!" cry the Twilighters, salivating over Stephanie Meyer's thirty-fourth description of Edward's stone-cold, marble-like chest.
 

While there's no denying, given the popularity of the series, that the Twilight vampires are compelling, there's also no denying that there's a rich and complex cast of vampire characters from pre-Twilight vampire canons. As a long-time vampire fan, I've decided to remind our Twilight-infatuated world of those vampires. To do that, I'm starting an ongoing series of profiles of some great vampires that predate Twilight.
 

Our first featured vamp is:


Lord Byron. Can you picture him with fangs?

 

Lord Byron     Wait, you say. Isn't Lord Byron a poet whom I learned about in eleventh-grade English? It's very possible. Lord Byron was a Romantic poet, and was not, technically, a vampire. But he was quite possibly the inspiration for the modern vampire myth. Before the Romantic era, vampires were grotesque, unattractive denizens of eastern European folklore. They bore little resemblance to the sadistic yet suave vampires that we know today. And then Byron came along. He was, in the words of his jilted lover Lady Caroline Lamb, "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." He gallivanted through the early nineteenth century London social scene, having torrid affairs and scandalizing society. Nobody knows how many of the rumors about Lord Byron's antics are true, but, among other things, he supposedly drank wine from a human skull. He also allegedly had an affair with his half-sister. He was dark-haired, brooding, melancholy, prone to ravishing women (and men), and an all-around bad boy.
    

You can see where the modern vampire gets his habits from.
   

In the summer of 1816, when staying with fellow poet Percy Shelley at a Swiss chalet, Byron began writing a story about a vampire, which he quickly abandoned. But the idea was picked up by Byron's personal physician, John Polidori, who was quarreling with Byron at the time. Polidori adopted the idea for his story "The Vampyre," which features a mysterious, decadent aristocrat named Lord Ruthven who prowls through Europe preying on innocent young women. At the end of the story, it is revealed that Lord Ruthven is actually a vampire. Historians suspect that "Lord Ruthven" might be Lord Byron in a not-so-subtle literary disguise (the similar-sounding names and the identical personas were a big tip-off). And so Byron, bad boy of the British social scene, earned his place as the first vampire in English literature. And more importantly, thanks to Byron, the modern, aristocratic, seductive vampire was born.

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