Vampires: some monster’s faces in brazilian narratives

Abstract

The vampire, by all indications, constitutes as a timeless being, occupying the beliefs of certain societies, or presenting itself as a character in literature, TV or movies From its archaic conception to the modern figurations it suffered (and it still suffers) several metamorphoses, each culture presents it under different formats, affirming or denying values from different times. In this paper, some representations of the vampire in the Brazilian literature are analyzed, more precisely between 1849 (year of publication of Otávio e Branca ou a Maldição Materna- by João Cardoso de Menezes e Souza) and 1908 (year of publication of Esfinge – by Coelho Neto). We tried, by doing this, to show what faces the Brazilian literature lent to the myth, and to notice if its presence in the national territory, from the mid-nineteenth century to the dawn of the twentieth century, has established itself or if it is just transitory.