2 - Vampires and Satire in the Enlightenment and Romanticism

Summary

In chapter 1, we saw how, in the earliest stages of the vampire's history — that is, first among Balkan hajduks and then for German and Austrian academicians — the name of this monster marked sites of troubled cultural continuity. Enlightenment sensibilities quickly dispelled the earnest speculation of early academic vampirologists. After the rash of vampire treatises in the 1730s and early 1740s, the monster ceased to provide an object of serious contemplation. In Vienna, at midcentury, the royal adviser Gerard van Swieten, a Dutchman exemplifying the sober mindset of his native country, prevailed upon Maria Theresa to regard the outbreaks of undead activity with the same levelheadedness with which she viewed the persecution of supposed witches. In 1755, the Empress issued two decrees forbidding witch hunting, the “execution” of vampires, magic, fortune telling, and digging for treasure.

We now turn to the social tensions that the vampire incarnated elsewhere, when the featureless, yet striking invader came to represent injustice, greed, and corruption in political and monetary economies. France faced its own problems (to be discussed in a moment), but the troubles of Versailles were not those of Vienna. France did not produce much in the way of vampire commentary, except for the dismissive remarks of Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens, who ascribed vampire beliefs to overactive imaginations in the 137th installment of the Montesquieu-inspired Lettres juives (1737), and Dom Augustin Calmet (whom we have already encountered), who described vampirism and witchcraft as equally ridiculous forms of “illusion, superstition, and prejudice.”