With the growth in popularity due to series like Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles and the motif’s recurring presence in cinematic adaptations of Stoker’s Dracula as well as various TV formats public interest has never ceased to the present day. As the most significant characteristic of the vampire is its being multi-faceted and changing, its potential to be also of great intertextual value can be thereupon considered. Consequently, it can be assumed that Meyer’s tetralogy clearly evokes these instances of intertextuality through the adoption of patterns and themes that have already proved productive in earlier literary works. However, in Meyer’s work these sources are remarkably extended and sometimes even altered as she relies to a large part on her pretexts to tell her narrative and construct a postmodern vampire figure.
In order to achieve a comprehensive analysis it is necessary to incorporate all four volumes – Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn – of the Twilight series in the discussion. Meyer’s just recently published work The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella will only engage a marginal part of the analysis as it largely concentrates on the subplot of Eclipse, hence not being particularly significant for the main events of the story. On the other hand, Meyer’s Midnight Sun, although until the present day a yet unfinished and unpublished manuscript, is of great importance for the subsequent analysis.
Meyer dwells on a number of themes, structures, and characters that have intertextual potential. One can distinguish between pretexts that are apparently marked in Meyer’s work and sources that only bear non-literal intertextual references. Pretexts that are overtly marked and are thus explicitly intertextual in the Twilight series are: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, The Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Merchant of Venice, Bram Stoker’s Dracula as well as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice,
Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park. A number of other pretexts are only covertly marked as they point back to literary traditions or character types. Pretexts that are implicitly marked are: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Die Braut von Korinth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel, John Keats’ Lamia, Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling, Lord Byron’s Manfred as well as Roman Polanski’s movie adaptation of Rosemary’s Baby.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Methodology
2.1. INTERTEXTUALITY: A STRUCTURALIST APPROACH
2.2. THE NARRATOLOGICAL APPROACH
2.2.1. Point of view and the Narrator
2.2.2. Themes, Motifs, Symbols
3. Directions in Research
3.1. VAMPIRES IN TWENTYFIRST-CENTURY LITERATURE
3.1. LITERARY CRITICISM ON THE TWILIGHT SERIES
4. Man of Feeling, Byronic Hero, and the Nineteenth-Century Vampire
4.1. THE MAN OF FEELING
4.2. THE BYRONIC HERO
4.2.1. Types and Prototypes
4.3. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY VAMPIRE AND ITS METAPHOR
4.3.1. Lamia, the female Vampire, and Sexuality
4.3.2. Power and Alienation, the Aristocratic male Vampire
5. Intertextual Structures, Themes, and Characters in the Twilight Series
5.1. THE POSTMODERN VAMPIRE FIGURE
5.1.1. The Other Perspective
5.1.2. Edward Cullen: a Postmodern Byronic Hero
5.1.3. The Female Vampire
5.1.4. Representations of Good and Evil
5.1.5. The Vampire and Society
5.2. THE STAR-CROSSED LOVERS
5.2.1. Obstacles to a Relationship
5.2.2. Lovers driven by Fate
5.2.3. Sexuality and the Monster it creates
5.3. DOUBLING FIGURES
5.3.1. Doubling Characters
5.3.2. Doubling Structures
6. The Twilight Saga – An Intertextual Summary
7. Conclusion
8. Bibliography
Research Objectives and Core Themes
This thesis investigates the intertextual depth of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight tetralogy by tracing the literary sources, narrative structures, and character archetypes employed throughout the series. The primary research question addresses how Meyer utilizes established literary pretexts—ranging from the Gothic novel and Romantic poetry to Austen’s social dramas—to construct a postmodern vampire mythology while simultaneously reinterpreting traditional heroic traditions like the Byronic hero and the star-crossed lovers motif.
- Analysis of intertextuality through structuralist and narratological frameworks.
- Examination of the Byronic hero archetype in the characterization of Edward Cullen.
- Deconstruction of the star-crossed lovers theme and its relation to historical literary pretexts.
- Investigation of the female vampire motif and its evolution into postmodern figures.
- Exploration of how the author employs structural devices like letters and newspapers to enhance narrative immediacy.
Excerpt from the Book
5.1.1. The Other Perspective
The other perspective has been immanent in fantastic literature and especially in the Gothic novel since Romanticism. When Mary Shelley gave her monster a voice in her debut Gothic masterpiece Frankenstein in 1818, it was particularly to level the reader’s emphatic understanding for her monstrous character. The creature’s tale that encloses the story of the lovers Felix De Lacey and Safie at the precise heart of the narration arouses the reader’s sympathy. It makes its actions credible and comprehensible for the readers that would otherwise not grasp the monster’s cruel and gory deeds.
When Varney in the end of the penny-dreadful Varney the Vampire tells his story through his own eyes and eventually commits suicide as a form of self-punishment, he turns sympathetic and remorseful, thus forestalling later twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary vampires – a convention that Stoker, however, does not pick up on in Dracula. Nevertheless, it became a tendency that other writers of vampire stories like Fred Saberhagen or Anne Rice adopted in telling the vampire’s tale from the revenant’s perspective.
The case in Twilight appears slightly different. The story is told by a first-person narrator who is simultaneously a character in the story and the protagonist of the four novels. Above all, Bella Swan, the heroine of the Twilight series, is human for the greatest part of the plot. The limited point of view the story is told from and the unreliable narration that is consistently evident throughout the series serve to further the sense of a more than human standpoint that is expressed since the reader would normally expect to encounter a heroine who would less embrace the other than Bella Swan apparently does.
Chapter Summary
1. Introduction: Outlines the origins of the Twilight series, establishes the author's intent to explore intertextual structures, and frames the research within the context of 200 years of vampire literature.
2. Methodology: Introduces the structuralist and narratological approaches utilized to analyze how Meyer’s work draws upon pretextual sources.
3. Directions in Research: Provides a comprehensive overview of existing scholarly work on vampire fiction, ranging from 19th-century classics to contemporary critiques of the Twilight saga.
4. Man of Feeling, Byronic Hero, and the Nineteenth-Century Vampire: Examines the foundational hero types in English literature and their influence on the development of the vampire archetype.
5. Intertextual Structures, Themes, and Characters in the Twilight Series: The central analytical chapter detailing how themes like star-crossed lovers, postmodern vampires, and doubling figures are constructed using literary precedents.
6. The Twilight Saga – An Intertextual Summary: Synthesizes the findings to demonstrate how Meyer constructs a complex intertextual network that both honors and updates established literary traditions.
7. Conclusion: Summarizes the thesis findings, confirming the success of the intertextual approach and suggesting areas for future research regarding other supernatural creatures.
8. Bibliography: Lists the extensive primary and secondary literature consulted, including works by Austen, Brontë, Stoker, and Shelley.
Keywords
Intertextuality, Twilight Series, Stephenie Meyer, Byronic Hero, Vampire Literature, Star-crossed Lovers, Narratology, Gothic Novel, Femme Fatale, Structuralism, Postmodernism, Literary Criticism, Character Archetypes, Dracula, Frankenstein.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core focus of this academic work?
The thesis focuses on the intertextual relationships between Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight tetralogy and a wide array of classic literary works, examining how the author adapts established structures, motifs, and archetypes into her own narrative.
Which key themes are analyzed in the study?
The study centers on three main thematic cornerstones: the construction of the postmodern vampire, the adaptation of the star-crossed lovers motif, and the use of doubling figures and structures throughout the series.
What is the primary objective of the research?
The primary goal is to trace the sources Stephenie Meyer employs in her series to determine how these pretexts shape the work's meaning and to highlight which components are truly innovative additions to the genre.
Which scientific methods are applied here?
The author uses a structuralist approach to intertextuality, combined with a narratological analysis, to systemize and describe the connections between the primary text and its hypotexts (pretexts).
What does the main body of the work cover?
The main part of the book explores specific hero traditions such as the Man of Feeling and the Byronic hero, the representation of female vampires, and how these figures are modernized within the Twilight series.
Which specific keywords characterize this thesis?
The work is defined by concepts such as Intertextuality, Byronic Hero, Star-crossed Lovers, Narratology, and the Postmodern Vampire figure, among others.
How does the author view Edward Cullen's heroism?
The author situates Edward Cullen as a postmodern Byronic hero, noting that he incorporates characteristics like guilt, remorse, and an aura of mystery, while simultaneously benefitting from rehumanization in a way denied to his literary predecessors.
How does this thesis evaluate the female vampire characters?
The analysis demonstrates that Meyer utilizes the range of nineteenth-century female vampire archetypes—including both the intimate companion and the fatal demonic seductress—to construct multifaceted characters that reflect and sometimes subvert these traditional models.
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- Kathrin Fäller (Autor:in), 2010, “And it’s all there” – Intertextual Structures, Themes, and Characters in Stephenie Meyer’s "Twilight" Series, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/182779
