Vampires and Zombies: No mere pop culture trend

Vampires and zombies, both of which became a popular phenomenon in Victorian Britain, are all the rage. Temple English Professor Peter Logan believes this is no mere pop culture trend, but rather a reflection of the strong parallels between that period in Britain and our own here in the U.S.

Victorian Britain was the first industrialized society and the dominant world super power of the nineteenth century. At the height of the Victorian period, one quarter of the world’s population were British subjects.

Temple English professor says vampires popularity lives as long as they do -- forever.

“It was the beginning of the world as we know it today, and it was beset with some of the same problems associated with being a world power that we are currently facing,” Logan said.

But, while vampires were popular during the nineteenth century — just as we see today in the hit HBO series True Blood and the Twilight series of books and movies — the phenomenon didn’t start with Dracula.

The title character in Varney the Vampire (1847) was an aristocrat who walked around in daylight, but he needed the moonlight to survive, said Logan.

“The classic scene during this time is of a weakened vampire soaking up the moonlight and being revivified,” he said.

Appearing at the end of the nineteenth century, Bram Stoker’s Dracula reflects a changed social environment in which the British Empire was at its height and conflicts with the colonies in Africa and Asia were a major concern.

“For these changed times, Count Dracula is still an aristocrat, but he is also an outsider from the fringe of Europe, and he brings his mysterious ways to London, the heart of England and the center of the empire,” said Logan.