The Vampire in European Literature and Culture of the Long Nineteenth Century

The workshops investigates the aspects of the ”monstrous" and the “fantastic” during the long Nineteenth Century, paying particular attention to the figure of the vampire with the aim to explain the social, political, aesthetic and cultural factors that have been contributing to its undeniable literary fame. What kind of fears and fantasies does it crystallize? And what kind of discourse about sexuality, death, and disease does it validate? What does its mere existence reveal about gender and ethnicity? In order to answer this questions and to gain a deeper understanding of the figure of the vampire, the workshop will cope with J.W. von Goethe’s Die Braut von Korinth,  E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Vampirimus, Théophile Gautier's Clarimonde, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

- Obligatory reading 

-  E.T.A. Hoffmann, Vampirismus, in Die Serapions-Brüder, in Sämtliche Werke, hrgs. von W. Segebrecht unter Mitarbeit von U. Segebrecht, Frankfurt am Main: Dt. Klassiker-Verlag, 1987, Bd. IV or. engl. trans. in The Serapion Brethren, London-New York: George Bell, 1892, vol. II. 

- T. Gautier, La Morte amoureuse, in La Morte amoureuse - Avatar et autres récits fantastiques, Paris: Gallimard: 1981; engl. transl. Clarimonde, North Hollywood, Aegypan, 2011. (Available online at: https://clarimondeproject.wordpress.com/the-story-clarimonde-by-theophile-gautier/)

- Optional/further reading

-  J. W. von Goethe, Die Braut von Korinth, in Goethe Gedichte, hrsg. von E. Trunz , München: C.H. Beck, 1982 or engl. trans. The Bride of Corinth, in Poems and Ballads of Goethe, New York: Delisser & Procter, 1859.

- B. Stoker, Dracula, London, Penguin Classics edition, 2014.

// Prof. Dr. Raul Calzoni, University of Bergamo

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