I never remember February 29ths - or at least I don't recall any specific ones in my life so far. So this time I thought I would sling something on my Blog, then in four years time I can look back and see what I was up to...
Alas, we've lost Davy Jones at 66. Cue flashes of the only three Monkees tracks anyone remembers (Daydream Believer, I'm A Believer and Last Train To Clarksville - only one of which he sang lead on) and remembrances of countless school holidays watching endless repeats of The Monkees on TV while we munched our Shreddies. I remember watching it simply because it was on and there was nothing better on at the time. Occasionally it was funny the way they goofed around, those crazy American (and token Brit) lads, but I was always painfully aware that this was from my parents' era and the music was old-fashioned. I prefered The Banana Splits...
I've re-read John Polidori's The Vampyre: A Tale (1819) this evening - partly because it's in the edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein I'm about to tackle (Penguin, 1991) and partly because I haven't been allowed access to the lounge to watch my 'UNIT Files' DVD box set that arrived in today's post!
Polidori's short story comes with 'A Fragment' by Lord Byron, which is often suggested as inspiring Polidori's piece since the two gentlemen travelled in Europe together for a time before Byron got sick of Polidori's argumentative attitude (this, it seems, was Polidori's way of preparing for a life as a medical doctor). Byron's 'Fragment' should be treated simply as that - a piece of ephemera to be relegated to the writer's occasional scribblings. On its own it's a very unsatisfactory piece.
The Vampyre is a much more accomplished work of Gothic melodrama and it is clear even to the casual reader that it inspired Le Fanu and Stoker to develop some of the ideas more fully later in the century. It's difficult for us these days, I think, to imagine a world without Dracula - particularly considering the popularity of Stephenie Meyer and her many copiers. But this is where it all started.
At 30 pages it's not a long story, but at the same time it's as long as it needs to be. It has no pretence beyond its fruity melodrama as it lurches towards its predictable conclusion, but it's a competently composed work of prose and not a shilling shocker or a penny dreadful by any means. It's appended to Frankenstein instead of Dracula because Byron and Polidori were there in the French Alps with the Shelleys when they traded ghost stories. Critics are keen to attach social commentary to many of the longer pieces of classic Gothic literature, but what is most noteworthy here is the pyschological hold that Lord Ruthven has over Aubrey. This tale is as much of psychological horror as it is of actual horror. If Lord Ruthven was based on Byron and Aubrey on Polidori himself (as is suggested) then this is a bold statement about the relationship between the two men and no mistake.
It's also gratifying to note that vampyres in the early Nineteenth Century upheld the sanctity of marriage before feasting - although Byron's rakish reputation would suggest that he didn't share the fictional Ruthven's view. Maybe Polidori was making a subtle point here? I suspect it fell on deaf ears...
No comments:
Post a Comment