Alternative spellings

• (archaic) vampyre

Noun

Singular vampire

Plural vampires

vampire (plural vampires)

1. A mythological undead creature said to feed on human blood. [from earlier 18th c.]
2. (colloquial) A person with the medical condition Systemic lupus erythematosus, colloquially known as vampirism, with effects such as photosensitivity, brownish-red stained teeth, and increased night vision.
3. A blood-sucking bat; vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) [from later 18th c.]

Synonyms

• (mythological creature): nosferatu
• (bat): vampire bat

Derived terms

• vampire bat
• vampiress
• vampiric
• vampirism

Related terms

• vamp

Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in many cultures and in spite of speculation by literary historian Brian Frost that the "belief in vampires and bloodsucking demons is as old as man himself", and may go back to "prehistoric times", the term vampire was not popularized until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.

While even folkloric vampires of the Balkans and Eastern Europe had a wide range of appearance ranging from nearly human to bloated rotting corpses, it was the success of John Polidori's 1819 The Vampyre that established the charismatic and sophisticated vampire of fiction as it is arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century inspiring such works as Varney the Vampire and eventually Dracula.

However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula that is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and which provided the basis of modern vampire fiction. Dracula drew on earlier mythologies of werewolves and similar imaginary demons and "was to voice the anxieties of an age", and the "fears of late Victorian patriarchy". The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, video games, and television shows. The vampire is such a dominant figure in the horror genre that literary historian Susan Sellers places the current vampire myth in the "comparative safety of nightmare fantasy".

A Vampire is an supernatural creature, featuring prominently in horror fiction and folk tales, that lives after death through drinking the blood of the living.

Contents

• 1 Sourced
• 2 Unsourced Quotes
• 3 See also
• 4 External links

Sourced

• She [Susan] is very lovely, Mr. Mears - very toothsome if I may be permitted a small bon mot.
  • Barlow's note left to Ben & co. pg 345 'Salem's Lot;Stephen King.

• The world is coming down around our ears and you're sticking at a few vampires.
  • Ben Mears, 'Salem's Lot, Part 2, Chapter 5; Stephen King.

Unsourced Quotes

• The Black Dahlia, she was someone who was just waiting for an executioner, waiting for it to happen. She was an ideal victim. I've met quite a few like her. They're just crying out, not just to be killed, but also tortured. She seemed very parasitic, a psychic vampire.
  • Anton LaVey

• For many years I had heard about an underworld consisting of people who act out a vampire fantasy while I was living in New York. Fortunately for me there are also several books on the phenomena.
  • James Patterson

• I figured that, if you do a vampire movie in Hollywood, you've made it.
  • Christopher Atkins

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Mon Feb 22 03:41:52 2010