SOURCE: Varnado, S. L. “The Daemonic in Dracula.” In Haunted Presence: The Numinous in Gothic Fiction, pp. 95-114. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1987.

In the following essay, Varnado views Dracula as a dramatization of the “cosmic struggle between the opposing forces of darkness and light, of the sacred and the profane.”

Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of those rare novels that merits the timeworn phrase “it needs no introduction.” Since its publication in 1897 the book has established an undeniable claim on the public imagination. Not only has it passed through innumerable editions (including foreign translations), it has entered the domain of popular culture through constant dramatizations, including radio, motion pictures, and television. The world has taken the book's grim protagonist to its heart in a way reserved for only a few mythical figures. In another decade Dracula will celebrate its hundredth anniversary, the benchmark Samuel Johnson thought...