Stoker And Irving example essay topic

Bram Stoker unleashed his horrific creation on an unsuspecting world over one hundred years ago. One could hardly imagine that his creature of the night would delight and inhabit the nightmares of every generation between his and ours. Count Dracula has become an icon of evil, and is perhaps the most widely recognized bogeyman in all of world literature. To date, there have been over one hundred films made about Dracula or other assorted vampires, not to mention countless novels, comic books, nonfiction works, toys, clubs and societies-even a children's breakfast cereal celebrating the myth of the undead count. Dracula's notoriety is of such epic proportions that it has all but obscured the man who gave us this deliciously terrifying character of fiction. Abraham "Bram" Stoker was born in Clontarf, Ireland on November 8, 1847, the third of seven children.

For the first eight years of his life, he never stood upright without aid and was constantly kept in bed with unidentified illnesses ("Classic Notes"). These illnesses and his feelings of helplessness were traumatizing experiences, which are noticeable in his literary work. Everlasting sleep and the resurrection from the dead, which are the central themes of his Dracula, were of great importance for him, perhaps because he was forced to spend much of his youth in bed. Although he remained shy and bookish, in his teenage years Stoker was anything but sickly. Perhaps to make up for his earlier frailty, by the time Stoker attended Trinity College, in Dublin, he had become a skilled sportsman and was named University Athlete for his impeccable skill in soccer and marathon walking. At Trinity College, Stoker studied history, mathematics, and philosophy, and became president of the Philosophical Society and the Historical Society.

It was there that he was introduced to the works of American poet Walt Whitman, and became an instant and devoted fan. He wrote Whitman a long, gushing letter praising his work, but did not mail it until four years later. In 1870, Stoker graduated from Trinity with honors in mathematics. A series of events occurred while at Trinity that would change the direction of Stoker's life forever. A theatrical touring group came to Dublin offering a production of Sheridan's The Rivals featuring a young actor named Henry Irving (born John Henry Brodribb), the most highly revered Shakespearean actor of the period. "He is credited with lifting the social status of the acting profession [...

] In 1895, he was knighted by Queen Victoria, thus becoming the first British actor to receive a knighthood" (Irving). Stoker was mesmerized by Irving's charismatic performance, but was disappointed to find only a cursory mention of the event in the next day's Dublin Evening Mail. A second tour by Irving four years later produced an equally unsatisfactory mention in the Mail, prompting an outraged young Stoker to march into the offices of the newspaper and offer himself for the unpaid position of theater critic. He got the job, and as a result, when Irving (now a star of the London stage) returned to Dublin a third time, this time to star in Hamlet, Stoker had the opportunity to set down in print glowing praises of his favorite actor. Irving read the review and was delighted to the extent that he invited the young critic to supper at his hotel, and began a friendship that would last for almost thirty years.

In the years between 1870 and 1877, Stoker, yielding to his father's wishes, followed him into a career as civil servant in Dublin Castle. However, Stoker maintained ties to Trinity College, returning there frequently to speak on a wide range of topics for the Philosophical Society. In 1878, Irving took over ownership and renovation of London's Lyceum Theatre, and asked Stoker to come to London to manage the theater and Irving's career. Stoker immediately resigned his dreary civil service position, married a young lady he had recently been courting, the beautiful Florence Bal combe, a former girlfriend of a young Oscar Wilde, and rushed off to London with new bride in tow to come to Irving's aid. Before Stoker left Ireland, he published Duties of Clerks of Petty Session in Ireland, rules that were drawn from his experiences as a civil servant. Within a year, Florence had given birth to their only child, a son, Irving Noel Stoker.

The many years with Henry Irving were full of hard work and sacrifice, as Stoker frequently put his work before his family. Florence resented it fiercely and, although they continued to keep up appearances, it is believed that the Stokers became estranged ("Bram Stoker"). Their son grew so bitter over the lost attention that he dropped his first name" (R. Miller). Despite his heavy professional duties, and in spite of the resentment his family was feeling, Stoker somehow found the time to write fiction.

He published a collection of eerie fairy tales for children in 1882, called Under the Sunset, and his first full-length novel, The Snake's Pass, in 1890 (Menon). For the next 27 years, Stoker and Irving were an inseparable team, Stoker supervising all the business aspects of the Lyceum and its productions, and Irving casting, directing and starring in the plays. They toured America six times, during which time Stoker got to meet his beloved Walt Whitman, who was quite taken with Stoker, actually remembering his giddy letter from some years before. They corresponded until the poet's death in 1892 (Folsom and Price).

Stoker's first foray into gothic horror was the short story The Chain of Destiny, published in the Shamrock in 1875. However, it is Dracula that brought Stoker fame and a seminal role in the construction of the ubiquitous horror myth that filled the twentieth century's books and cinema. "As Stoker researched the vampire myth, he was drawn inextricably to the cradle of the vampire myth in Europe, the Balkans, [and] Prince Vlad Types (nicknamed 'Dracula,' Hungarian for 'Son of the Dragon') " (More). In 1890, Stoker began making notes for the Dracula story (his demonic villain was originally to be named "Count Wamp yr") and continued working on the project until its publication in 1897, spending more time on the book than any literary project before or since (E. Miller). With contrasting Transylvanian and English settings and a mixture of the erotic, the macabre, and the thrilling adventure so typical of later nineteenth century fictions, Stoker created a novel and a character from which he and his reputation would never escape. While Dracula was not the first novel to bring to the attention of the public the nature of vampires, it was the one that gripped the public imagination, possibly because of its barely suppressed strong sexuality-"a veritable sexual lexicon of Victorian taboos (seduction, rape, gang rape, group sex, necrophilia, pedophilia, incest, adultery, oral sex, menstruation, venereal diseases, and voyeurism" (R. Miller).

The critics of the day were underwhelmed, to say the least, as was the English public, in general. Although the book enjoyed steady sales and provided the Stokers with an adequate income, it never made the fortunes for Stoker that it would eventually make for others after his death. Inexplicably, this master of detail management failed to secure an American copyright for his work, and thus never received a penny in royalties from this country, where the book was much more popular. On a later tour to America, Stoker found that he was something of a celebrity due to the publication of Dracula-no longer totally outshone by the flamboyant Henry Irving.

In 1905, Sir Henry Irving collapsed on stage at the Lyceum during a performance of Tennyson's Becket, but was revived and made it home to the lobby of his hotel where he collapsed a second time and died. A devastated Stoker drifted through life after that, managing various theatrical projects, working as a writer here and there, and publishing more novels, none of which compared to the one great creation of his life. "Bram Stoker died on April 20, 1912 in London, England and was interred at Golders Green Crematorium, London" ("Wikipedia"). Bram Stoker wrote numerous novels, short stories, essays, and lectures, but Dracula is, by far, his most famous work. His other works have not aged well, but the story of Count Dracula continues to sell steadily even to this day. Stoker coined the term "undead" (Stoker 195), and his interpretations of vampire folklore have powerfully shaped depictions of the legendary monsters ever since.

Bibliography

Bram Stoker". E Literature. January 4, 2004.
Classic Notes: Bram Stoker". . com. January 5, 2004.
Folsom, Ed and Price, Kenneth M. Biography. The Walt Whitman Archive. January 5, 2004.
Irving, Sir Henry. World Book Online Reference Centre. January 2, 2004.
Menon, Sindh u. Bram Stoker. January 2, 2004.
Miller, Elizabeth. Count Dracula. Memorial University of Newfoundland. December 31, 2003.