Honors Program
Global Citizen Scholars
Date of Award
5-2026
Thesis Professor(s)
Brian Jeffrey Maxson
Thesis Professor Department
<--College of Arts and Sciences-->
Thesis Reader(s)
Julie Fox-Horton
Abstract
Medieval ideas about vampires continue to influence portrayals of them in modern media. Although modern vampires are portrayed with more powers and abilities than their medieval counterparts, the categories of traits remain consistent. This paper makes these points by using five characteristics (creation, physical characteristics, relationship to blood, social life, and death/weakness) to examine the evolution of vampires from Medieval European lore to modern day media. The sources examined range from the 13th century to 2017. From the Medieval era through 1897, vampire characteristics changed little. Bram Stoker’s Dracula marks the first major change in vampire characteristics and provides the foundation for all future vampire media. Though Dracula sets the stage for all modern vampire media, vampire characteristics remained static in imitation of Dracula until the 1980s. The movie The Lost Boys represents the second great divergence of vampire characteristics and the first piece of media to evolve from the standard set by Dracula. Though it is not as popular or as directly influential as the Dracula book, The Lost Boys opens the door for the subsequent rapid evolution of vampires seen in media today.
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Tucker, Maryn A., "“Thou Shalt Not Die”: The Evolution of Vampires from Medieval Europe to the 21st Century" (2026). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 849. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/849
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.
Included in
Cultural History Commons, European History Commons, Medieval History Commons, Social History Commons, United States History Commons
