This paper focuses on early nineteenth-century English prose writing and, in particular, on the literary output of John William Polidori (1795-1821), a relatively neglected author of Italian origin who is generally remembered as George Gordon Byron’s personal physician during their 1816 journey through Europe, when he also became the target of the poet’s typically contemptuous ironic remarks. My aim is to investigate Polidori’s role as the agent of a twofold process of cultural mediation connected, on the one hand, with the enhancement of the Byronic myth in Europe and, on the other, with the development of the vampire genre in Gothic literature throughout the Romantic period. Indeed, Polidori was instrumental in strengthening the artistic potential of vampire fiction, as testified to by “The Vampyre” (1819), a tale which was first accredited to Lord Byron and printed in the “New Monthly Magazine” without Polidori’s permission. With its composition and publication stages still partly shrouded in mystery, “The Vampyre” reveals itself as a multilayered work, both on the textual and paratextual levels. Its sources, composition history and reception will be analyzed while pointing out Polidori’s metaphorical, bifurcating transmutation into a vampire and a vampirized victim. A young talented writer who tried to attain success by capitalizing on Byron’s notoriety, he was at the same time a troubled soul who failed to stand up to the latter’s strong personality. Briefly put, Polidori proved an ambivalent intermediary who wavered between the poles of strategic planning (where also plagiarism, forgery, and the publishers’ close monitoring of market trends entered the picture) and circumstances which ultimately exceeded the intentio auctoris. When examining this tale, various elements should be kept in mind, including Lord Ruthven himself, the aristocratic vampire who was to epitomize the Byronic type while conveying the monstrous traits of the spectral figures from German ghost stories.
Il saggio si focalizza sulla prosa inglese della prima metà dell’Ottocento, in particolare la produzione di un autore di origini italiane spesso relegato ai margini nei manuali di storia della letteratura. Si tratta di John William Polidori (1795-1821), comunemente ricordato nelle sue funzioni ancillari di medico di George Gordon Byron, nonché frequente bersaglio dell’ironia e dell’atteggiamento sprezzante del poeta, durante un noto viaggio continentale da loro intrapreso nel 1816. Si intende qui investigare il ruolo di Polidori come agente di un duplice processo di mediazione culturale legato, da un lato, al consolidarsi del mito byronico in Europa e, dall’altro, al diffondersi del genere gotico-vampiresco in epoca romantica. Fu questo un genere al quale Polidori contribuì in modo decisivo a conferire dignità e statuto grazie a “The Vampyre: A Tale” (1819), racconto dalla genesi controversa – uscì “unauthorized” sul “New Monthly Magazine”, che ne attribuì la paternità a Byron – e ricco di stratificazioni a livello testuale e paratestuale. L’obiettivo è esaminare gli stadi compositivi, le fonti e la tipologia di ricezione connessi all’esperimento dell’autore anglo-italiano, che in questo percorso talora tortuoso si rivelò metaforicamente sia vampiro, sia soggetto vampirizzato, ovvero un giovane talento che cercò di farsi strada cavalcando l’onda della notorietà di Byron, ma anche un animo tormentato che non riuscì a tener testa alla personalità titanica con cui venne a scontrarsi. Polidori fu in tal senso una figura chiaroscurale di mediazione, sospesa tra l’ambito di una pianificazione strategica (nella quale entrarono pure in gioco forme di plagio e falsificazione e il coinvolgimento attivo di editori attenti alle logiche di mercato) e dinamiche esterne all’intentio auctoris. Vari saranno dunque i fattori da tenere in considerazione nell’analisi di questa potente trasposizione letteraria, dove Lord Ruthven, l’aristocratico vampiro, divenne tanto magnetica incarnazione del “Byronic type”, quanto indice negativo di un “mostruoso” che affondava le radici nelle leggende vampiresche nordiche.
“The Vampyre” di John William Polidori e lo spettro di Byron: luci e ombre di una mediazione culturale complessa
Giovannelli Laura
2019-01-01
Abstract
This paper focuses on early nineteenth-century English prose writing and, in particular, on the literary output of John William Polidori (1795-1821), a relatively neglected author of Italian origin who is generally remembered as George Gordon Byron’s personal physician during their 1816 journey through Europe, when he also became the target of the poet’s typically contemptuous ironic remarks. My aim is to investigate Polidori’s role as the agent of a twofold process of cultural mediation connected, on the one hand, with the enhancement of the Byronic myth in Europe and, on the other, with the development of the vampire genre in Gothic literature throughout the Romantic period. Indeed, Polidori was instrumental in strengthening the artistic potential of vampire fiction, as testified to by “The Vampyre” (1819), a tale which was first accredited to Lord Byron and printed in the “New Monthly Magazine” without Polidori’s permission. With its composition and publication stages still partly shrouded in mystery, “The Vampyre” reveals itself as a multilayered work, both on the textual and paratextual levels. Its sources, composition history and reception will be analyzed while pointing out Polidori’s metaphorical, bifurcating transmutation into a vampire and a vampirized victim. A young talented writer who tried to attain success by capitalizing on Byron’s notoriety, he was at the same time a troubled soul who failed to stand up to the latter’s strong personality. Briefly put, Polidori proved an ambivalent intermediary who wavered between the poles of strategic planning (where also plagiarism, forgery, and the publishers’ close monitoring of market trends entered the picture) and circumstances which ultimately exceeded the intentio auctoris. When examining this tale, various elements should be kept in mind, including Lord Ruthven himself, the aristocratic vampire who was to epitomize the Byronic type while conveying the monstrous traits of the spectral figures from German ghost stories.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.