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Ok can anyone tell me why you or people feel that Vampires are considered to be Romantic or more of the Victorian state of mind to the puplic?

I would love to have some feed back / comments on this and why you feel this is to be true.

My thought is due to the gruesomeness of lets say the one called Vlad the impaler. Vampires in early days of movies were also portrayed in a ugly and vicious way. We as humans are more prone to romanticize with the vampires portrayed in todays novels, Anne Rice or Laurel K. Hamilton very sexy and somewhat conscious of their pray, mobsters, pedophiles, etc..

I personally like to romanticize about the vampire in the days of Lestat and the era they lived (specifically the french quarter time) in many ways. I'm intrigued by the clothes and their ability to change over centuries. I like the Idea of the french quarter in the olden days because I like how their were proper ways of behavior, and men were gentleman. I loved the hats. The coming out parties, all of that stuff is romantic.

So I tend to think of them in the Romantic state as it were..

I like the Victorian Parlor Days. The people actually entertained each other back then. Society was selective as well. There where those that had their religious home groups and for others there was Parlor night. That gathering .. I can see where the two genres merged.

Err?

Well of course people like to paint a pretty picture of something to make it more likable. I doubt that so many people would like vampires if the media hadn't made them 'sexy' or 'attractive'.
As for the Victorian era, I love that time, one of my favourite periods. Not just for the fashion but also because people still had such a thing as morals back then.

People back then had opened up to expanding on things that had stagnated in culture, they imagined them better, using the popular forums, parlor, and digest I would like to get my hands on a stack of Victorian Digests.

I think that vampires are often viewed in that time area/mood setting because vampires are believed to be more seductive and beautiful. During that period of time, promiscuity was secretive and therefor, more alluring. People of fair skin were considered gorgeous, and vampires are said to almost glow. It seems fitting that these two would blend well because it becomes almost fantasy-like.

The seamy underside to all that flowery language, high morals and polite but repressed sexuality was the Victorian love of pornography. And it wasn't wholesome and bawdy as in the 18th century, but tended toward the dark, or at least murky, side of human sexuality. Women, in some circles, were on a pedestal and they needed to be knocked off it, usually by submitting to degrading acts. The whole victorian vampire thing is about dominance, loss of control (for the woman) and viscous (read wet) surging passion. There's a strong current of homophobia and where the Schoolmaster cannot be with his cane, there is Von Helsing with his stake.

I looked at this from the immortal angle and found this to be of interest.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19970822/ai_n14118653

I would say that a vampire is nothing more then a poet trapped by there own search for the beauty in suffering

This article briefly touches on what I've referred to:

Victorian Vampire Sex

That is how they tricked their female pray into giving them what they want

While degradation is not my thing, it still sounds like more fun than closing my eyes and thinking of the Queen.

Vampires are evil, evil is sexy. It basically boils down to the work of Hollywood. Before then vampires were nothing more than evil and frightening monsters.

Personally I think the idea is somewhat romantic but that could just be because I'm slightly nuts :)

Women wrote in digest, there confessions to being overcome by vampires. I am spinning google for some of those digest..

The Romanticism at the end ot the 18th century tried to recapture emotion and nostalgia, lost in the Enlightment and Industrial Revolution. With this, the gothic novel had its rebirth. Johann von Goethe wrote his novel The Bride of Corinth (Die Braut von Corinth), preceded by Gottfried August Buerger's Lenore. These stories, as well as several poems of vampires of the 19th century by Keats, Coleridge and Baudelaire, included an element previously unkown to the vampire lore in traditional sense. This was the element of seduction, the bringing of pleasure in death. Then came the infamous The Vampyre by John William Polidori (well,he actually took over the story from Lord Byron) and Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu. Varney the Vampyre, written in 1847 by Prest and Rymer, became the longest novel ever written on the subject of vampires.

Fantasy and horror were in great demand, but during the mid-19th century the popularity dwindled once again, due to its repetetive nature. But this did no last long, reappearing again in the victorian era. It is truly ironic that in a century where all things decadent and unsavory were supposed to be repressed, the legend of the vampire reached a peak. Perhaps viewed as an escape by many, the vampire appeared onstage, in novel, in poetry and in prose. The hypocrisy of society was in such a state that writing horrific stories was quite permissable so long as morality triumphed in the end. It was in this time that Bram Stoker wrote his legendary novel Dracula. Though he had never himself been to Transylvania, the setting of the story, nor truly studied as a professional writer, the success of his novel was phenomenal, and it would forever define our views of the vampire..

More reading:

The History of the Vampire

I have to disagree with xzavier that Hollywood is at the root of it all. Carmilla, if not demonstrating outright sensuality between two females (by my modern standards) shows them to be highly affectionate with each other. Even Varney had his seductive moments.

No, the horror was in the blood and the death, but the means . . . the varied means that vampires went about getting their blood were far from horrendous. Wily, yes. Conversational, always. Fade to black when encountering females, most of the time.

The literature of the time could have shown them to be marauding revenants, and it did, but only rarely. In order to sustain a serialized story, as in Varney, one needed blood, horror and sex.

Hollywood didn't invent it, just capitalized on it.

http://www.victoriaspast.com/MyFavoriteHouse/diary.htm

Hollywood gives people what they want. It's a business. Movies are leaning away from the romantic vampire and more towards the blood and gore.

Most of the Novels I've read portray the vampire as a romantic. But it doesn't go without the blood and stuff which the author tends to glamorize for our pleasure. I find it pleasantly pleasing.

a lot of novels and movies have there vampires as romantic, and a lot of them pre date to the victorian time, that i think is why it happenes so offten.

Man I cannot find any of the Digest type stuff I used to read, some heavy breathing stuff, bordered on erotic.

I think it enhances the more ethereal and mysterious side of the Vampire...it's much more attractive to the general public that way.

I have read in many vampire novel that vampires can romantic and evil at the same time

Prehaps it is the hunt and the chase , the seduction and romance, the pain and pleasure ,all wrapped up in one package.
The mystery of the unknown ...the promise of immortality...if all was like fiction , who wouldn't want it?

i have just started the first J.R.Ward book, and there is no romance, some lust, some murder but no romance

The true Romantism was portrayed more in the victorian times: just look at the hillarious/romantious Buffy or the action vampire from the Blade serie and so on.The vampire of today, at least in Hollywood and US literature is not Romantic but based on action or sexuality.I think the exceptions you mentioned are too few to bring the conclusion in your advantage.

Clarimonde, Carmilla, Dracula, are true Romantic characters.The scary component versus the faible and beauty component is a Romantic trait.Sacrificing the scary, brings down the tension and the contrast and make the vampire only an excuse for attract the public to buy the product.

Also the amount of information and the thirst for exotism of the character and for the fantastic and imaginary sais much about the rtist need for the vampiric theme.


We have a distorted image about Romantism today.

When it comes to the stereotypes of vampires in shows and movies (i.e., BtVS, Angel, Underworld, Moonlight, Blood Ties) that are out there today, it's all about the blood, gore, special effects and large box office profits. Even books by Anne Rice are disected and taken apart to make movies for today's audiences. Those movie goers who are not into reading, have only on-screen interpretations of vampires.

Fortunately, there are still many of us who, when thinking of vampires, remember and appreciate them as they were first depicted as written by Polidori/Byron, Le Fanu, Stoker and others during the Romance/Victorian time period.

I Agree with PsiVampire

Woman of the era, could have wanted to be lusty, yet still wanted the innocence to peek out, so the vampire, and hypnotist for that matter, created a charmed state to third party there active intrest, "I was seduced by his vampire charm."

Romance requires patience, an essential ingredient for seductiveness, as well. Both of these attributes revolve around the issue of time. In the nineteenth century, the propertied individual --- one who had an inherited income --- regarded time differently than we do today. In other words, they weren't in such a big hurry.

Stalking takes patience. The romantic vampire has that. Seduction of the demure female (in victorian lit) takes time. The romantic vampire has infinity. Pretty words are important, too. The romantic vampire reads in his spare time.

These are all qualities missing from the modern vampire. Except for Spike on Buffy. He tried to rhyme the word "refulgent." Yup, Spike had it all. Plus, anger.

It's how some eat... Seduction

I don't see them that way, but my theory is that people think they live forever "hollywood" vampires we are talking about then if they are immortal then they must be beautiful and romantic. Again just a theory.

i think that vampires were very romantic back then thats why preyed on the females,the reason being it way easier they lured the women in by lust,and desire and the women could not help it the vampires knew thier weakness the men were just used as salves

ok heres my theories


i think a vampire is considered victorian because of the time period they were brought into the public eye. Also, due to the different superstitions of that time, we seem to fit quite well.


They are romantic on the other hand by the way we supposivly "lure" our victims. I also think its how we find such beauty and peace in things that most people consider the darker side of life.

People where big about collecting writings and oral traditions that had been written down, they would pride themselves on retelling the stories, to other.

Vampires are more from Symbolism. They have a tragic shadow as a symbol... Non dead and non alive ...maybe that could be the reason.

Vampires are just more asthetic for that period.

Simply put, the movies spin a romantic view of vampires and in real life i think vampire were most likely consider dangerous hideous monsters.. But we all have our own views..

I agree with Undervampsgaze, movies do tend to romanticise vampires - even ones like Blade have the 'perv factor' where the vampires are hot even though they are evil..... which goes a long way toward taking the scare/gore factor out of the image or myth of vampires.

Interview with the Vampire is a prime example - with eye candy like Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Antonio Banderas how could the image of vampires not be romantic?? Even if they do drink blood ;)

untill the victorian era and the books which came out,most english speaking people never heard of vampires.and they where represented more and more as romantic.

Sample of Romantic Vampire prose from Dion Boucicault, The Vampire: A Phantasm (1852).


Alan: Thou lovest me, thy sould is mine. Come to my heart, thou can'st not escape the spell my spirit has cast . . .

Ada: Because that breast upon which you press me, seems to be the bosom of a corpse, and from the heart within I feel no throb of life!

Alan: Ah! dost thou know me, then?

Ada: Away - phantom! demon! -thy soul is dark, thy heart is cold.

Alan: Ada -thy life must pass into that heart.

Ada: Avant! Leame me! Avoid thee, fiend! Abhorrent spectre!

(she retreats from room)

Alan: She is mine.

wow interesting responses and wonderful links thanks everyone.

I also believe that the Victorian Days was all about sex LOl I mean everyone and everything was about who was doing whom and when and where, Vampires love the challenge of taking a LADY as it were to the new heights or lows LOl however one may look at the sexual appetite of the people of that era. Vampires mainly just gave them what they wanted the Forbidden fuit as it were.

I mean they always had their bust out there protruding LOL how can you resist biting into that... and giving them what they want ...or taking what you want either way very sexual and deadly alot of STD going around back then...

Openess in sexuality is linked to Romanticism--but Romanticism is a movement in the arts that flourished in Europe and America throughout much of the 19th century from the period of the French revolution in 1789. Romantic artists glorified nature, idealised the past, and celebrated the divinity of creation. There is a fundamental emphasis on freedom of self expression, sincerity, spontaneity and originality.

The movement rebelled against classicism, and artists turned to sources of inspiration for subject matter and artistic style. Their treatment of subject was emotional rather than reasonable, intuitive rather than analytical. Among other Romantics, the focus on the human being was manifested in a fascination with the eerie and exotic and with the effects of guilt, evil, isolation, and terror on the human psyche.

Romanticism was seen as a revival of the essentially modern, spiritual and fantastic culture of the Middle Ages. Romantics were involved in emotional directness of personal experience and individual imagination and aspiration. They no longer wanted to conform to the impersonal, artificial ordered rationality.

generally I feel its because thats when the main stories written were picturing it....Bram being in the 1800's was probably thinking of earlier setting along with his twisting in the history of Vlad from the 1400's

I think that the Victorian Age was the last time period where you could choose to either be a part of society or become separate. Today, no one can get away with not abiding by some country's laws, paying some sort of municipality for services, taxes, etc. Then, you could. I think that this, the most similar means of living but by your own rules attracts people and their imagination. What could they get away with? Who would have to know? A timeless social ladder; rest on whichever rung you'd like.

The Victorians were extremely regimented and rule bound. The English empire was still expanding and there was prejudice against colonials and the people they conquered.

Think about Dickens' stories, and the stratification of classes. There were taxes a plenty, and the laws were hard on paupers, whores, and tax evaders.

Profane, perhaps you were referring to the art.

Here's some examples and a brief intro on the rebellion:

Romanticism Art History

Role Play, and Parlor gatherings, using esoteric fiction, even screen plays was the social option for those that did not feel the need to fit in with new found society, stepping out side ones social role, and into one crafted, or interacting with others through games and performances. things that where latter written of in journals and diaries, to show that they had a daring and interactive curious life, yet be able to "pull off societies normal appearance.

dabbler, it would be best if you don't keep repeating your same posts. Post count is not everything here on VR. We get the point, they had digest. O.o

i feel vampires act that way because they are normally from an important family and the vampire world is a social hierarchy

I was making the connection between the "Secret life" and the social life, and how that created a sort of a rewrite of popular themes.

Well I feel that it is not so much the Sexual yet it is / was the whole luring and controlling of the victims whether it be male or female .. like the hunt and the kill soto speak. Do not get me wrong I know that era was very sexual LOL yet as for the Vampires go I thinkit was just more fun for them to play with the Humans as it were. LOl just an opinion is all.

Probably because people can connect more with the Victorian style rather than an animalistic version.

People play at different levels and so do vampires, which doesn't mean the high-falutin ones can't slum it once and awhile.

The baser instincts --- blood lust and sexual ravaging --- get old. Why not daly and have a few plot twists such as human drive to connect, to long, to be denied, thrown into the mix. The more the character mimics our own (human) complexes the more interesting the character.

I personally like the victorian era . Vampires always seem to be more romanticized . If they were not so romantic and were actually like something in the movie 30 days of night would we still really be all that interested?

fyrechyld -


Probably. Who wouldn't be interested in an immortal creature who dies in the sunlight while still being able to kill people so very easily to get the blood the require?

Hoo-boy, talk about a run on sentence as well as a mouthful.

I think Vampires in the films were sexy and romantic to lure/woo their victims because they had to be so close to bite them. Its like a cunning trap. Its just a gift that vampires had. Unfortunately humans have learn't these ways and are using the same effect to get what they want.

Blood Mother, thank you for the writers touch.

i think because in the voctorian era everything was viewed with a romanic side than how things/creatures are viewed now.

BRAM STOKER I BELIVE IS THE ONE WHO STARTED THIS

over the years, decads century I shall even say vampires have been portray as all kind from the ugly monster with the face of a bat, skin like a gross sort of glue, to a very sexy and attractive humaniod form.

It will keep on being that way and change as it is the nature of humans to do so and to wish so.

It just depends on how the writer writes about them. Most of what we think about vampires these days comes from books and one in particular. There was the zeitgeist of certain times. We are totally dependent on historians that have listened to folktales being repeated to them in most cases. I know this is a generality but in most cases very true. That is why one will say one thing and another something else and then when they decide which opinion seems the most plausible that is the one that is accepted. That whole period is perceived as romantic.

i do say that i myself love Victorian style and now an again i love hopeless romantic but with that there is evil, but most like to see things in a lighter mood why well i would say it is because if they jazz the bloody thing up then it dose not seem so bad to want to be some thing so evil vampires are just damned souls some are good as portrayed in books and some are bad and if you think of it who would want to be that evil as Vlad if you had to pick i bet most would pick to be a romantic vampire. me i enjoy both good and evil because face it in a way vampire are both

This is why I liked the Frank Langella version of Dracula because they brought out that romantic side and you actually felt sorry for him and the way they ended it gave you hope that he survived in some way. The eternal romantic.

Vampires being Romantic isn't that an oxymoron

At first most things that are considered evil were NOT romantized. People i guess eventually started to see this labeling of sorts, and call it sympathy for the devil, most things that are considered evil, aren't as bad as they seem depending on how one looks it the nature of it. Stories and legends get twisted around all the time from one's imagination, and so it is for the vampire.

Yep, Hollywood has changed the idea's behind how vampires are seen. Thats marketing for ya.

Not all Vampyres dress the part. Some Vampyres can dress ghetto, like my friend who I have a picture of on my profile. We are seductive and romantic because a lot of us feed from sexual energy, so we have to know how to act towards others if we want to satisfy our needs.

many fantasize of times when things were easier per to say. Victorian age was elegant and mysterious, And the vampire lore would definatley have dominated in that period of time. Many moves have set that genre of time for the elegance and vampire seduction of this culture.

Even though it would have dominated during that time period, would it have been different from how they are viewed today? I mean there was so much fear and ignorance back then. Would the vamps have been more widely accepted?

To ponder this question we must at first look at the society of yester year and today, yeah many would have feared or discriminated vampires of the victorian age, Yet is todays society without fear and discrimination. Still the boundaries of what is not norm is not fit or outcasts of society. Victorian years would be more per say Fantasied and made to imotralize the women and their beaties in society. And a vampire would in fact enjoy the era of that time.

there old school for them its more love then lust

a dark sanguine pleasantry, in elegance and aura

i really dont know its interesting that people notice the change from the old movies

Repulse some with the horror tales, draw others with the romantic persona.. that we can tame the beast.. and that the beast has desires beyond just our vitality..

Yet keep the shallow do-goodie gawkers away with the snarly grotesque persona, I liked the woman of that era that wore funeral garb (to shun the contrived socialites).. however.. their underclothes... "!" Duel persona was a must, what one was secretly (in secret company) as opposed to how one acted when in public, or pretensious company. Always sending out hints to collect those that share ones daring to travel out of the box with new book ideas..

Romantic because they are so dark and and they are so very romantic

Vampires are considered sexy due to the way the can pick up women or men

It really depends on who writes about them. Vlad Tepes wasn't a vampire but Count Dracula was and it depends on what adaptation one watches. I think the first movie barring Nosferatu which was done without asking Mrs. Stoker first and they got sued is gruesome and I don't think it was romantic in any sense of the word. It was an adaptation of the book. The one that followed had the gentleman vampire with the cape and all the trimmings. The most romantic version of this book to me was with Frank Langella and it really portrayed the lonliness and isolation he felt. You feel that in the one with Gary Oldman too but that one is a little out there for me. I think this is the standard for romantic vampire that most started with even though there were stories prior. This one had a very strong impact on people. It is the forbidden love and the idea of life eternal but they had to pay a price for it. Humanity became nothing more than fodder.

At a website that re-examines who and what the Eastern European "Vampire" using the original historical Slavic accounts as the primary source material for same, there follows an interesting quote from one claiming to be an actual descendant from those vilified originally as "vampires." As this quote addresses this question so decisively, imho, I'd like to re-quore it here:


"To the same degree that many men today might consider such males as ourselves a threat to their ability to sexually and romantically attract females, so did they then. While welcomed in Sumer and Egypt, yet in ancient Canaan and later during the Middle Ages, we were vilified as inherently 'evil' and a danger to the lives and 'souls' of females everywhere. In particular during the Middle Ages in Eastern Europe, to 'protect' the Christian women of Medieval Europe from such sensual 'demonic possession,' first the communities then the local clergy and ultimately the Church branded those of us exhibiting this naturally multiorgasmic capacity with the particularly terrifying label: nosferatu.

"To frighten women and arouse the wrath of the local populaces we were slanderously depicted as creatures of the night, as the 'Undead,' as parasites that suck the life from the female living. And while these outrageous lies succeeded in their purposes against us, ultimately resulting in many deaths and forcing us to leave Eastern Europe en masse, yet they also have ironically spawned a rich tapestry of folklore, literature, and film that despite its total lack in truthful basis, still even today retains some of the original sense of eroticism that is the literal embodiment of who and what we truly are and always have been; perhaps in the end a fitting and lasting tribute to the 'Dark' Legacy of which I, for one, am physiologically part."

- www.rephaim.org

Very interesting post. I am looking at it, thank you and I think we like the idea of the romantic side of vampirism rather than just pure instinct on the level of a lower animal. I was a little put off though that they used the word Nosferatu because that right there makes me wonder about their academic research techniques even if at Rutgers. Very interesting, again thank you.

I like my vampires romantic...if they weren't, I wouldn't be interested in 'em...

Mollidew:

I think once you have read the research offered at that website and the true historical etymology of the term "Nosferatu" and the implications thereof that have nothing to do with blood-drinking, etc., and everything to do with romantic hypersexuality, you might be less inclined to be "put off" by the usage of that term, which is in fact only one of many regional colloquialisms for what we today call "vampires."

I believe.. as stated above in some replies that its more from a frame of lust than romance itself.

Romance is the castle built upon the foundational bedrock of Lust.

Were it not for the sexual drive, would men be wooing and courting women? Would women be responding to such from men? Would romance even exist at all?

I.... think not. ;)

Vampires are supposed to be very old, and the Victorian dress is very beautiful and romantic.

Yes, indeed, vampires... or rather, those later vilified as such... did live for significantly longer periods of time. Prior to the alleged destruction of those likewise vilified as "Fallen Angels" and their descendants, it was supposedly recorded that lifespans extended for several centuries and only limited to "...an hundred and twenty years" (Genesis 6:3) following the regional flood later mythologized as "Noah's Flood." As the "Fallen Angels" and their long-lived descendants were indeed the progenitors of "vampires," it is not at all surprising that that such descendants should possess this same longevity.

Well with the way they have been portayed in boosk and movies, i think that has just taken over with what peoples views,, if all movies had them appear like Bram's in full form then i highly doubt that anyone would think of it as romantic, but aslo that i would say in order to get close enough to the victim as portrayed in movies it would have to be something easy on the eyes, right ?

Bram Stoker's fictional portrayal of the Slavic vampire could hardly be viewed as anything but... well... ficitonal. As well might we consider Spielberg's or Lucas' portrayal of aliens to be accurate as Stoker's of vampires.

If one but takes the time to investigate the primary source material from the Slavic countries of their origin, one soon discovers an entirely different view of who and what the "vampire" truly was. ;)

I enjoyed that fragment of an article.. I like the idea that men in the times, rather then accept that their woman where likely to step out, would rather create an uber' seducer to mystically make them weak.

To much Hollywood. Think how many vampires "are from one era". But if you look tv/movies act like all are made from this time only. None from now 40"s,50's 60's? The old toga times. Vampire not in any other dress but Victorian or leather. Get real. No way.

People rather like to dress up at times and the clothing from that time is rather ornate. Plus the idea of them being nobility plays into a lot. Nobility is rather a dead concept now a days. But in a lot of stories, they are aristocrats and/or of a royal lineage in some cases.

Well I feel that it is not so much the Sexual yet it is / was the whole luring and controlling of the victims whether it be male or female .. like the hunt and the kill soto speak. Do not get me wrong I know that era was very sexual LOL yet as for the Vampires go I thinkit was just more fun for them to play with the Humans as it were. LOl just an opinion is all.

I Do Not Think As So, With So Many types There Are They Come From Many Places And Can Be Asian, Black And So Forth.
I Think It Is TV And Movies That Show Those Kind To The Masses

I think that during that time period sex was more a game and who could bed whom LOL and the woman were more alluring to the men, I mean the bustlines were up front and in charge of everything even the queen was very alluring in her own royal state as it were.

The Vampires found the game to be most pleasureable and the chase, they just could not resist the necklines that were ther for the taking .very romantic and sexual in the era. I mena there were more sexual diseases during that time period than any other so there you go ...

well vampires have to be able to attract their prey and using romance is one way to attract human to them like in the book Twilight when Edwards says "everything about me is suppose to attract you to me even my smell"

in Victorian times Vampires were romanticized because of the shock value and the fact that it was taboo for a woman to think such things like sex and being ravaged by strong men and liking it women were suppose to be quite and demure and not like sex or be sexual and as Dracula was a Vampire he was Romanticized for the women and it grew from there.

Vampire become romantic from movies , that and the whole neck biting seemed intimate and close.. Not the whole scary blood thirsty type back in the old days.. I blame movies lol

Because people can better connect with the Romantic vampire. Something which has humanity left and isn't completely animalistic.

i think that people like to see the softer side of a vampyre versus the rage and carnage of a vampyre.

The thing is, even Vampires that are of the Romantic genre still do have "The Beast" within them. Vampies present themselves in different manners. Those who seem to be in "Beast Mode" all of the time, perhaps have no need to hide or use their more "Human" side.

Others may prefer, or have a need, to present themselves as more "human" and be more approachable due to their status, living situations and conditions, relationships, business ties, etc. This does not mean that they are not as lethal, destructive, or evil.

Remember, you "Draw more flies with honey". And why not make "dining" a pleasurable thing for both the Vampire and his/her prey?

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