Supernatural Elements in English Literature: the Werewolves

Supernatural Elements in side Literature The Werewolves Awere skirt chaser, also known as alycanthrope, is amythological orfolklorichu public with the ability totransforminto a wolf or ananthropomorphicwolf- the like creature, either purposely or after be placed under a fellow and/or lycanthropic affliction through with(predicate) a bite or scratch from a werewolf, or around otherwise means. This transformation is oft clocks associated with the appearance of thefull moon, as popularly noted by the medieval chroniclerGervase of Tilbury, and perhaps in earlier time among the ancientGreeksthrough the writings ofPetronius.In addition to the natural characteristics inherent to twain wolves and hu opuss, werewolves be often attri howevered strength and speed far beyond those of wolves or men. The werewolf is generally held as aEuropeancharacter, although its knowledge administer through the world in later times. Shape-shifters, similar to werewolves, are reciprocal in tales from a ll over the world, most notably amongst theNative Americans, though most of them involve sentient being forms other than wolves.Werewolves are a everyday subject of modernfiction, although fictional werewolves urinate been attributed traits distinct from those of original folklore. For example, the whims that werewolves are only vulnerable to liquid bulletsor pierced by silver weapons, or that they can cause others to become werewolves by biting or wounding them derive from works of modern fiction. Werewolves continue to endure in modern culture and fiction, with books, films and television shows cementing the werewolfs stance as a superior figure in horror.The werewolf of the last 60 years is by and large the product of Hollywood. The depression big werewolf film was The lycanthrope of capital of the United Kingdom (1935) followed by The Wolf globe (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943) and The House of Frankenstein (1944). THE CHILDREN OF LYCAON The Greeks and Romans included the werewolf in their mythology, in the story of Lycaon, the Tyrant of Arcadia. Lycaon served Zeus (pronounced as zeoos) human manikin at a banquet. In return the god transformed the wicked man into a wolf, reflecting the shape of his soul.The very first transformation dig in werewolf literature was penned by the Roman poet, Ovid. Written in the 1st Century AD, the scene shows even the ancient writers knew what readers wanted to m white-haired There he uttered howling noises, and his attempts to speak were all in vain. His clothes agitated into bristling hairs, his arms to legs, and he became a wolf. His own savage spirit showed in his rabid jaws, and he now directed against the flocks his innate craving for killing. He had a mania, even yet, for shedding blood.But though he was a wolf, he retained few traces of his original shape. The greyness of his hair was the same, his breast showed the same violence, his eyes gleamed as before, and he presented the same pic ture of ferocity. From Lycaons propose we originate the word Lycanthropy or the verbalize of being a werewolf. From mythology, the werewolf entered legend. In the works of Herodotus and Petronius, the werewolf goes from being a mortal unlucky by a god to a shape-shifting witch or warlock with loathsomeness intentions. In PetroniusThe Satyriconis a segment sometimes called Niceros Story.Stories like Niceros Story were third estate well up to the feudal times. The werewolf was a man, transformed into the animal with all its vulnerabilities. Geraldis Cambrensis tells some two Irish folk pestd by an abbot, to be wolves for their ungodliness. After seven years penance as wolves, they were to change back into humans and return home. The Rawlinson Manuscripttells about King Arthur and Gorgalon. Gorgalon is some other poor individual cursed to be a wolf. These medieval werewolves did not kill men or livestock, and could even speak the Name of beau ideal to prove their goodness.The y are victims of priests, witches and often their own sin. THE LITERARY WEREWOLF The conversion ushered in a new era, that of the literary werewolf. earth-closet Webster wrote of lesson werewolves and vampires in his playThe Duchess Of Malfi(1613), figurative creatures rather than literal ones. William Beckford, writing a century later during the Age of Reason, briefly mentions the lycanthrope in his arabesque taleVathek(1787)as does Charles Maturin in his masterpiece,Melmoth The Wanderer(1820).Other literary figures like Mrs. Crowe and Alexandre Dumas wrote works with werewolves central to the plot. Even the rich and sanguine Penny Dreadfulssemi-illiterate, often plaguaristic, newspapers sold for a penny a pageproduced one lycanthropeWagner, The Wehr-Wolf(1846) by G. W. M. Reynolds. With the exception of Wagner, more often than not, the werewolf was apply as a metaphor for the beastly sins of glutton, severeness and avarice than as an actual creature. Despite works with Roma ntic tonalities like GeorgeMacDonalds The Gray Wolf and The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris as well as Robert Louis Stevensons Ollala, the legal age of squeamishsperhaps the single period to produce the greatest werewolf classics favorite(a) the supernatural approach, in adventure stories like Rudyard Kiplings The Mark of the Beast(1891), moral tales like Clemence Housemans The Werewolf(1896) and the masterpiece of vampirism,Dracula(1897) by Bram Stoker. More raise to the lycanthrophile is the excised first chapter, publish as Draculas Guest in 1914.In this chaptercut because of the fabrications lengthJonathan Harker leaves his carriage, which is taking him to Transylvania, and gets lost in a snowstorm. The graveyard he takes foster in is inhabited by the undead. Only Draculas appearance as a great, red-eyed wolf, saves Harker, so that he can go onto Castle Dracula and the well-known(a) events there. It is with Stoker and the other Victorians that lycanthrope returns to its true state as a supernatural creature, but retains some allusive qualities as a literary device.The Twentieth Century brought many works about werewolves, more than in any preceding era. Early on these works resemble their Victorian counterparts in the works of writers like Algernon Blackwood and Eden Phillpotts, dealing mostly with moral evil embraced in traditional ghost story techniques. It took a novel by New Yorker, Guy Endore (Harry Relis), to change the werewolf newspaper publisher forever. Before Endore, the only werewolves to comment on social ills or the state of Mankind, were the allusive villains of Webster, evil men but not in actuality flesh-eating(prenominal) monsters.Endore combine the actual werewolf and the literary werewolf to create a modern classic. During the years that Endure wroteThe Werewolf Of Paris, the greatest explosion of entertainment writing in American history was taking place. During the 1920-50s the Pulp magazines henpecked popular entertainment . Titles like Weird Tales and Strange Stories produced hundreds of works about werewolves and other monsters. One writer who exemplified an imaginative use of the werewolf, was Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Cimmerian.One of his very first stories was the vignette In the Forest of Villefere(1925) which first introduces de Montour, a man who meets a werewolf and kills him in wolf form. By so doing, he assumes the curse from the last victim. When we meet him again in Wolfshead(1926) we get to see how the curse comes on him like a ghost, possessing him and turning him into a wolf man. De Montour was standing, legs braced, arms thrown back, fists clenched. The muscles bulged beneath his skin, his eyes widened and narrowed, the veins stood out upon his forehead as if in great physical effort.As I looked, to my horror, out of nothing, a shapeless, unnamed something took vague form Like a shadow it moved upon de Montour. It was hovering about him Good God, it was merging, beco ming one with the man It should be noted that hydrogen Hull had yet to appear asThe Werewolf Of Londonand garb Hollywoods werewolf mould for all time. Across many stories, Howard sets down the idea that the wolf people, the harpies and other mythological creatures are ancient survivors of a time when man had yet to evolve from the trees. Contemporary with Howard was H.Warner Munn who pennedThe Tales of the Werewolf Clan. Beginning with The Werewolf of Ponkert(1925) he creates a different image of the lycanthrope, not a man who becomes a wolf but another creature who only shares some of the wolfs features Munns work was inspired by a letter from H. P. Lovecraft published in Weird Tales. HPL asked why someone had not attempted a werewolf story narrated by the werewolf himself. Munn tells the decline of a man who is selected against his will to join the wolf clan that is led by the frightening Master, a vampire-like being who feeds on victims souls.The sequel The Werewolfs Daughter (1928) tells of the Werewolf of Ponkerts female child who is wrongfully prosecuted for his crimes. H. P. Lovecraft, whose fame lies with monsters on such a gigantic scale as to make the werewolf look trivial, himself apply the werewolf in a collaborative story called The Ghost-eater(1923), in which the werewolf has been murdered but returns as a ghost, reliving over and over its revenge. He also used the lycanthrope in the poem, The Howler(1929).MODERN WEREWOLVES With the coming of pulps like Astounding intuition Fiction and Amazing Stories in the 1920s, Science Fiction writers would eventually get around to explaining the werewolf in scientific terms, in magazines like John W. CampbellsUnknown. Three of the most intriguing areThe Wolves of lousiness(1932,Strange Tales)and the novelDarker Than You Think(1940,Unknown) by Jack Williamson and There Shall Be No Darkness (1950,Thrilling Wonder Stories) by James Blish.Recent horror writers have used this same approach, playing fast an d loose with the traditional werewolf but creating consistent, terrifying monsters. Whitley Strieber disposed with the shape-shifter altogether and gave usThe Wolfen(1978), ancient wolf-like spirits who have been on the Earth longer than humans. Preying off the unwanted and derelict, the Wolfen are the clear of the human food chain, taking the sick and the weak. The future of the werewolf is assured. The old lycanthrope has a few surprises left up his furry sleeve.