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Zombies Vs. Vampires
Feb. 15th, 2011 08:56 amOne of my panels at Capricon was billed as "What's up with the boom in zombie literature and films? From World War Z to The Walking Dead, zombies are becoming the new hot paranormal creature. (But not sexy hot like vampires and werewolves. That would be gross. Wouldn't it?)"
Well, in the shower the morning of that panel, I had a wonderful idea, which I shared with the panel and now with you. It's about the evolution of vampires and zombies. Prior to 1819, vampires were zombies - they were mindless undead, usually women who'd died in childbirth. These women climbed out of their graves at night and sucked the life out of infants. In fact, that's the original reason to drive a stake through the heart of the vampire - you stake them to the ground so they don't get out of the grave.
Then, in 1819, one John Polidori, Lord Byron's personal physician, wrote a short story called The Vampyre. This was the first story where a vampire could (and did) pass for human. Polidori's vampire was also an English lord. Now, Polidori himself died a few years later and didn't write much else, so it fell to others, including Bram Stoker, to refine the genre.
Prior to 1968, we didn't speak much of zombies. We talked of "zombie" singular. This was because a zombie (or a zombie army) was under the control of somebody. Then George Romero came along, and re-invented zombies as spontaneously-arising undead under nobody's control. Unlike poor Polidori, Romero had a long and productive career, so he's taken both Polidori's and Stoker's roles. And like both men, Romero's work has created a whole new genre of fiction.
Fiction, like anything else, evolves over time.
Well, in the shower the morning of that panel, I had a wonderful idea, which I shared with the panel and now with you. It's about the evolution of vampires and zombies. Prior to 1819, vampires were zombies - they were mindless undead, usually women who'd died in childbirth. These women climbed out of their graves at night and sucked the life out of infants. In fact, that's the original reason to drive a stake through the heart of the vampire - you stake them to the ground so they don't get out of the grave.
Then, in 1819, one John Polidori, Lord Byron's personal physician, wrote a short story called The Vampyre. This was the first story where a vampire could (and did) pass for human. Polidori's vampire was also an English lord. Now, Polidori himself died a few years later and didn't write much else, so it fell to others, including Bram Stoker, to refine the genre.
Prior to 1968, we didn't speak much of zombies. We talked of "zombie" singular. This was because a zombie (or a zombie army) was under the control of somebody. Then George Romero came along, and re-invented zombies as spontaneously-arising undead under nobody's control. Unlike poor Polidori, Romero had a long and productive career, so he's taken both Polidori's and Stoker's roles. And like both men, Romero's work has created a whole new genre of fiction.
Fiction, like anything else, evolves over time.
