if i could sleep with one guy in all of history, i think i’d pick Bram Stoker. the guy had some serious repression going on, i think he’d benefit from just being able to have some gay sex with no consequences. also he was hot
Stoker wrote Dracula as a direct reactionto the Wilde trials
Many of Dracula’s characteristics actually echo Wilde as described to the trials, and Dracula’s lifestyle resembles an exaggerated version of precautions to hide homosexuality
Stoker is basically the pro-closeted 1890s alternative to Wilde’s flamboyancy, and that comes out in how he portrays Dracula and Jonathan Harker
Like if you look deeper into Stoker’s letters to Whitman, he’s practically obsessed with feeling “naturally secretive” and “reticent”
(Also he and Wilde had some weird personal rivalry going on, since Stoker married Wilde’s definitely-not-straight ex-fiancee, though later they were friendly…there’s a lot to unpack here)
So, arguably, Dracula was Stoker’s way of apologizing for his silence during Wilde’s trials.
Some highlights:
Wilde’s trial had such a profound effect on Stoker precisely because it fed Stoker’s pre-existing obsession with secrecy, making Stoker retrospectively exaggerate the secrecy in his own writings on male love.
It is difficult, Stoker admits, to speak openly about “so private a matter” as desire. In carefully calibrated language, Stoker asks forgiveness from those who might see that his silence is a sin-to those few nameless souls who know his secret affinity with Wilde.
Since Dracula is a dreamlike projection of Wilde’s traumatic trial, Stoker elaborated and distorted the evidence that the prosecutor used to convict Wilde. In particular, the conditions of secrecy necessary for nineteenth-century homosexual life–nocturnal visits, shrouded windows, no servants–become ominous emblems of Count Dracula’s evil.
Dracula…represents not so much Oscar Wilde as the complex of fears, desires, secrecies, repressions, and punishments that Wilde’s name evoked in 1895. Dracula is Wilde-as-threat, a complex cultural construction not to be confused with the historical individual Oscar Wilde.
tl;dr:
Stoker is actually too repressed to function
Oscar Wilde (especially his trials) absolutely influenced Stoker
Dracula gay
Classic vampire lit really was just about exorcising one’s complicated feelings about one’s ex boyfriend huh?
Stoker wrote Dracula as a direct reactionto the Wilde trials
Many of Dracula’s characteristics actually echo Wilde as described to the trials, and Dracula’s lifestyle resembles an exaggerated version of precautions to hide homosexuality
Stoker is basically the pro-closeted 1890s alternative to Wilde’s flamboyancy, and that comes out in how he portrays Dracula and Jonathan Harker
Like if you look deeper into Stoker’s letters to Whitman, he’s practically obsessed with feeling “naturally secretive” and “reticent”
(Also he and Wilde had some weird personal rivalry going on, since Stoker married Wilde’s definitely-not-straight ex-fiancee, though later they were friendly…there’s a lot to unpack here)
So, arguably, Dracula was Stoker’s way of apologizing for his silence during Wilde’s trials.
Some highlights:
Wilde’s trial had such a profound effect on Stoker precisely because it fed Stoker’s pre-existing obsession with secrecy, making Stoker retrospectively exaggerate the secrecy in his own writings on male love.
It is difficult, Stoker admits, to speak openly about “so private a matter” as desire. In carefully calibrated language, Stoker asks forgiveness from those who might see that his silence is a sin-to those few nameless souls who know his secret affinity with Wilde.
Since Dracula is a dreamlike projection of Wilde’s traumatic trial, Stoker elaborated and distorted the evidence that the prosecutor used to convict Wilde. In particular, the conditions of secrecy necessary for nineteenth-century homosexual life–nocturnal visits, shrouded windows, no servants–become ominous emblems of Count Dracula’s evil.
Dracula…represents not so much Oscar Wilde as the complex of fears, desires, secrecies, repressions, and punishments that Wilde’s name evoked in 1895. Dracula is Wilde-as-threat, a complex cultural construction not to be confused with the historical individual Oscar Wilde.
tl;dr:
Stoker is actually too repressed to function
Oscar Wilde (especially his trials) absolutely influenced Stoker
Dracula gay
If anyone wants to read a very well-written and surprisingly entertaining account on pretty much everything and everyone Stoker was influenced by, ESPECIALLY his connection with Wilde and Whitman, do yourself a favour and read “Something in the Blood” by David J. Skal. It’s the most thorough recent account on everything that made Dracula and the onlly one that doesn’t shy away from all the points in the above post (Also, it won the Stoker award, which is basically the Pulitzer for horror(-related) literature - There’s a joke in there somewhere, but my brain’s too tired to craft it rn
I just want everyone new to Dracula and reading Dracula Daily to note that you are getting to read this novel in a weird and wonderful way that its author absolutely did not intend. This is not a straight serialization of the text. Dates skip around in Draculaas it is written, moving the reader backwards and forwards in time to help shape the specific narrative Bram Stoker wanted to tell. We all will–in fact–be skipping ahead some chapters in a few days to meet another narrator only to skip immediately back to catch up with our collective friend Jonathan Harker.
And I think this is rad! I think it’s amazing to have a bunch of readers who are reading this book–not as Bram Stoker wrote it–but in a way that conforms to the steady march of events within it. This is a unique opportunity in that you guys don’t get to shape your reactions in relation to things you know will happen later. You can’t have your dread or anticipation undercut by future events.
Like all the characters you’re going to meet, you just have to wait for Dracula to act upon you.
It’s worth noting that while Stoker definitely drew upon sources purporting to describe vampire folklore in establishing rules for his own vampires, some of the vampire “lore” you see in play in Dracula is original to him. The mirror thing doesn’t seem to have been around before Stoker. While there are regional superstitions one can track down about needing to cover mirrors in the home of the recently dead to prevent their corpse from turning vampiric, the idea that vampires cast no reflection appears to really have had its start with this novel. What’s more, it was only part of what was planned in Stoker’s notes on vampiric irreproducibility. While it never made it into the final text, Stoker wrote down vampires also wouldn’t show up in photographs (which is might be related to Jonathan conveniently mentioning his kodak camera) and that even attempting to paint a vampire would fail. Apparently painting a vampire was just supposed to end up looking like somebody else. Photographs would either come out black or show a skeleton or corpse.
As I understand, part of it is Silver-related. Both (high quality) mirrors and cameras of the time utilized silver.
We mostly know silver as a weapon against werewolves, but it’s long been considered holy and thus has power against evil like werewolves, vampires, and other undead. The idea that silver is so holy it refuses to even portray evil makes sense with other folklore.
The painting is the only one that doesn’t make sense with the silver idea.
I suspect mirrors are solely part of Stoker’s vampire depiction lore (reflections, paintings, photos) and don’t have anything to do with folkloric beliefs in the purity of silver.
The idea of depictions either capturing or representing souls was popular in Stoker’s time. The Spiritualist movement gave us the idea that cameras could capture photos of spirits or souls. Stoker was also deeply impressed by Oscar Wilde, who ofc wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). And the idea of a link between the depiction and the being it depicts is almost universal. So the concept of someone with an evil soul (or someone without a soul) having a fucked-up reflection (or none at all) fits pretty well in that tradition.
Silver as a tool against evil doesn’t come up in Dracula:one of the few mentions of silver has Count Dracula holding a silver lamp in his bare hand. Silvered mirrors weren’t invented and available in industrialised countries until about 1860, so any folklore that might have developed based on the combination of folkloric silver beliefs and the new mirror technology would have been very recent. It definitely wasn’t present in Dracula (published 1897) and certainly not in any lore from vampire-belief cultures that I’ve ever found.
The funniest thing is that even if silver backing was part of Bram’s mirror-reflection lore, Count Dracula would have never encountered any silver-backed mirrors in his isolated Transylvanian castle: they’d all be backed with tin and mercury. So the Count wouldn’t have known to worry about whether he showed up in them.
TL;DR: Beliefs about the powers of silver-backed mirrors are really recent and tbh I’m pretty sure it got widely popularised from the Supernatural episode about Bloody Mary
Jonathan be like he may be a horror beyond human comprehension and have me imprisoned in his castle with no hope of escape or rescue but he would make an excellent solicitor I mean what a mind
Do you like Dracula Daily? Do you wish it had more kissing, smut, and queer characters? Do you want a free original vampire novel sent in real time letters to your inbox?
This is What Manner of Man (working title), a queer vampire romance novel about a naive young priest sent to a remote island to exorcise the demons that are allegedly tormenting the villagers — but what happens when the priest begins to suspect his host, the mysterious, nocturnal lord of the local manor, may have invited him another reason entirely? And what happens when the supposedly celibate priest finds he cannot resist his host’s powerful charms?
I’ve been so into Dracula Daily I’ve begun work on a serial vampire novel of my own. The first chapter will go out January 2023!
It’s about pre-Brexit Britain, when an unemployed violent criminal from Eastern Europe could just wander into Whitby, Yorkshire and cause all sorts of chaos before, during and after the journey.
This is nothing like the movies.
No, it’s not. Modern readers will be confronted with a book made up of letters between the characters, diary entries and the occasional news clipping for context.
Wait. When is this bit happening? Did we go back?
The narrative skips around a bit. Don’t worry about it. It all comes together. Well, it doesn’t, but it’s fine (because it serves the narrative) and anyway, if you’ve read Game of Thrones and you can’t handle a bit of skipping around then you should present yourself to relevant authorities at first light.
Wait. Is this a sex thing?
We’ve all been conditioned by movie adaptations who are motivated to push the sexy angle, so probably not. There’s no way to be entirely sure but it’s worth pointing out that it certainly works as a sex metaphor.
And?
And it works as a metaphor for disease. So, no connection there, then. And certainly no explanation for the sudden explosion of vampire movies in the mid-1980s.
Wait. Is this a feminist thing?
Probably not. But it’s worth pointing out that most of the vampires in the book are women and they all aggressively pursue male victims.
What should I say to make people think I’ve read it?
“Real estate deals never go according to plan.”
What should I avoid saying when trying to convince people I’ve read it?
“My favourite Dracula is Tom Cruise.”
Should I actually read it?
Yes. It’s lots of fun. Just don’t expect a movie script.
