J. S. Barnes

Jan 8, 2025 | the-tls.co.uk | Arts ReviewA remake |J. S. Barnes |Adam Mars-Jones |colin grant

The Transylvanian Count Dracula is a shapeshifter in multiple senses. In Bram Stoker’s novel of 1897 he is seen frequently to transform, moving from an old man to a young one and from human form into a bat, a dog and a column of mist. In terms of the archetypes of Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth, he is both Shadow and Shapeshifter: a being composed of pure malevolence who also twists and changes, remaining one step ahead of his adversaries until the end.

Feb 12, 2024 | thecritic.co.uk | J. S. Barnes

This article is taken from the February 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. In his study, The English Ghost, Peter Ackroyd informs his readers, with characteristic sonorous certainty, that “the English see more ghosts than anyone else”. He lays this phenomenon at the door of a “peculiar mingling of Germanic, Nordic and British superstitions’, allied to our islanders’ sense of isolation.