'Supernatural Elements in English Literature: the Werewolves\r'

'Supernatural Elements in side Literature: The Werewolves A  lycanthrope, also k promptlyn as a lycanthrope, is a mythological or folkloric  gentle worldly concern with the ability to trans radiation diagram into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf- cargon creature, either purposely or afterwards organism placed under a  sentence and/or lycanthropic affliction through a twinge or scratch from a wolfman, or more or less separate means. This transformation is often associated with the push throughance of the  full phase of the moon moon, as popularly noted by the gothic chronicler Gervase of Tilbury, and peradventure in earlier times among the superannuated Greeks through the writings of Petronius.In addition to the natural characteristics essential to both wolves and humanness, werewolves are often attri thated strength and urge far beyond those of wolves or men. The loup-garou is in general held as a European character, a lthough its know conductge string out through the world in later times. Shape-shifters, corresponding to werewolves, are common in tales from both all over the world, approximately notably amongst the Native Americans, though near of them involve animal forms other than wolves.Werewolves are a frequent subject of modern font fiction, although fictional werewolves prolong been attributed traits distinct from those of original folklore. For example, the ideas that werewolves are only unprotected to  property bullets or pierced by silver weapons, or that they can cause others to become werewolves by biting or wounding them derive from kit and boodle of modern fiction. Werewolves continue to endure in modern culture and fiction, with books, films and television shows cementing the werewolfs stance as a dominant figure in horror.The werewolf of the come through 60 days is largely the product of Hollywood. The premiere big werewolf film was The werewolf of capital of the United Kingdom (1935) followed by The Wolfman (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943) and The House of Frankenstein (1944). THE CHILDREN OF LYCAON The Greeks and Romans include the werewolf in their mythology, in the base of Lycaon, the despot of Arcadia. Lycaon served Zeus (pronounced as ‘zeoos’) human flesh at a banquet. In return the god modify the unworthy man into a wolf, reflecting the shape of his soul.The real offshoot transformation scene in werewolf literature was penned by the Roman poet, Ovid. Written in the 1st Century AD, the scene shows even the old-fashioned writers knew what readers wanted to see: … There he verbalized howling noises, and his attempts to speak were all in vain. His garb channeld into bristling hairs, his fortification to legs, and he became a wolf. His own violent nature showed in his rabid jaws, and he now directed against the flocks his innate lust for killing. He had a mania, even besides, for shedding blood.But though he was a wolf, he retained some traces of his original shape. The greyness of his hair was the equal, his face showed the same violence, his eyes gleamed as before, and he presented the same picture of ferocity. From Lycaons name we allow the word â€Å"Lycanthropy” or the state of being a werewolf. From mythology, the werewolf entered legend. In the working of Herodotus and Petronius, the werewolf goes from being a mortal imprecate by a god to a shape-shifting witch or warlock with hatred intentions. In Petronius The Satyricon is a segment sometimes called â€Å"Niceros Story.Stories uniform â€Å"Niceros Story” were common well up to the feudal times. The werewolf was a man, transformed into the animal with all its vulnerabilities. Geraldis Cambrensis tells about two Irish folk annoyanced by an abbot, to be wolves for their ungodliness. After seven age penance as wolves, they were to change back into humans and return home. The Rawl inson Manuscript tells about â€Å"King Arthur and Gorgalon”. Gorgalon is another(prenominal) poor individual cursed to be a wolf. These medieval werewolves did not kill men or livestock, and could even speak the Name of God to indicate their goodness.They are victims of priests, witches and often their own sin. THE LITERARY lycanthrope The Renaissance ushered in a new era, that of the literary werewolf. John Webster wrote of moral werewolves and vampires in his play The Duchess Of Malfi (1613), figural creatures rather than literal ones. William Beckford, writing a speed of light later during the Age of Reason, briefly mentions the lycanthrope in his arabesque tale Vathek (1787)as does Charles Maturin in his masterpiece, Melmoth The Wanderer (1820).Other literary figures homogeneous Mrs. Crowe and Alexandre Dumas wrote works with werewolves central to the plot. Even the prolific and ruby Penny Dreadfulsâ€semi-illiterate, often plaguaristic, news papers sold for a penny a pageâ€produced one lycanthrope: Wagner, 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, roughness and avarice than as an actual creature. Despite works with Romantic tonalities like GeorgeMacDonalds â€Å"The Gray Wolf” and â€Å"The womanise of Photogen and Nycteris” as well as Robert Louis Stevensons â€Å"Ollala”, the majority of Victoriansâ€perhaps the single period to produce the greatest werewolf classicsâ€preferred the supernatural approach, in adventure stories like Rudyard Kiplings â€Å"The Mark of the Beast”(1891), moral tales like Clemence Housemans â€Å"The lycanthrope”(1896) and the masterpiece of vampirism, Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker. More arouse to the lycanthrophile is the excised first chapter, published as â€Å"Draculas Guest” in 1914.In this chapterâ €cut because of the unexampleds lengthâ€Jonathan Harker leaves his carriage, which is pickings him to Transylvania, and braces lost in a snowstorm. The graveyard he takes shelter 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 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 umpteen works about werewolves, more than in whatever preceding era. Early on these works correspond their Victorian counterparts in the works of writers like Algernon blackwood tree and Eden Phillpotts, dealing largely with moral evil embraced in traditional ghost fabrication techniques. It took a novel by New Yorker, Guy Endore (Harry Relis), to change the werewolf theme forever. Before Endore, the only werewolves to mention on soc ial ills or the state of Mankind, were the allusive villains of Webster, evil men but not in actuality flesh-eating monsters.Endore combine the â€Å"actual” werewolf and the â€Å"literary” werewolf to create a modern classic. During the years that Endure wrote The Werewolf Of Paris, the greatest explosion of frolic writing in American history was taking place. During the 1920-50s the Pulp magazines dominated popular entertainment. Titles like unearthly Tales and Strange Stories produced hundreds of works about werewolves and other monsters. ane writer who exemplified an imaginative use of the werewolf, was Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Cimmerian.One of his actually first stories was the vignette â€Å"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 â€Å"Wolfshead”(1926) we get to see how the curse comes on him like a ghost, possessing him and turning him into a â€Å"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 eyebrow as if in great physical effort.As I looked, to my horror, out of nothing, a shapeless, nameless something took vague form! Like a shadow it moved upon de Montour. It was hovering about him! Good God, it was merging, becoming one with the man! It should be noted that Henry Hull had yet to appear as The Werewolf Of London and set Hollywoods werewolf mould for all time. Across many stories, Howard sets batch 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 penned The Tales of the Werewolf Clan. Beginning with â€Å"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: Munn’s work was inspired by a garner from H. P. Lovecraft published in Weird Tales. HPL asked â€Å"… why somebody 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 fearsome Master, a vampire-like being who feeds on victims souls.The sequel â€Å"The Werewolfs Daughter”(1928) tells of the Werewolf of Ponkerts daughter who is wrongfully prosecuted for his crimes. H. P. Lovecraft, whose fame lies with monsters on such a gigantic plate as to make the werewolf look trivial, himself utilise the werewolf in a collaborative story called â€Å"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 lyc anthrope in the poem, â€Å"The screaming”(1929).MODERN WEREWOLVES With the coming of pulps like Astounding Science legend and Amazing Stories in the 1920s, Science Fiction writers would in conclusion get around to explaining the werewolf in scientific terms, in magazines like John W. Campbells Unknown. Three of the most intriguing are â€Å"The Wolves of Darkness”(1932, Strange Tales) and the novel Darker Than You Think (1940, Unknown) by Jack Williamson and â€Å"There Shall Be No Darkness” (1950, Thrilling Wonder Stories) by James Blish.Recent horror writers have used this same approach, playing fast and loose with the traditional werewolf but creating consistent, terrifying monsters. Whitley Strieber disposed with the shape-shifter altogether and gave us The Wolfen (1978), ancient wolf-like spirits who have been on the domain longer than humans. Preying off the unwanted and derelict, the Wolfen are the prime of the human fo od chain, taking the sick and the weak. The approaching of the werewolf is assured. The old lycanthrope has a hardly a(prenominal) surprises left up his furry sleeve. ??\r\n'