Study Questions for the Vampire Poem "Lenora"

This was authored by by Göttfried August Bürger in 1790, and translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (It is now on my to do list to find the date of the translation!) This is the version I include on my website. The second translator Thomas Taylor provides his translation in 1796. It is available online via the Romantic Circles High School. Click here to open to their webpage. For a fairly comprehensive biography of the author, I recommend Wikipedia -- Click here to open the biography.

Characters are: Visible: Lenora, William, Mother,
Affecting life, but unseen: Empress, King, Frederick
The overarching character is the Church and God.

2. What does war and vampirism (Yes, I am adding a word to the language)have to do with each other?

3. Why is the victim again a young and innocent woman, who is lead astray from her "mother's teachings?"

4. Can you diagram the plot-line?

5. We have several settings in this poem, most notably mother and kitchen, vampire and graveyard -- how are they treated as opposites?

6. The word vampire is never said here? Why is this a vampire poem?

_ The opposites here are "Faithless" versus "dead"

_ She assumes that a letter he sent would arrive? What is the logic failure here?

Stanza 2._ This is a work of art as far as poetic language works. Note the Alliterations, and the repetitions within the stanza. How do they work?

_ How do these characters work in the oppositions set up within the


Stanza 3. _ Why did the poet chose the word "swarming" to describe the joyous crowds along the way? If you look at the other version, translated by Thomas Taylor in 1796 and available online via the Romantic Circles High School.

_ Lenora has "sweet lips" that get no kiss and no greeting. She is not among the "trembling and blushing brides."


Stanza 4._ She feels alone among the crowd, left out of the joy; how does that make her a more likely victim, willing to make a wrong (yes, in this world sinful) decision?

_ How does her "dashing" herself into the ground play into her victim status?


Stanza 5. _ The victim condemns God as uncaring. How then does her eventual downfall become the just retribution for this condemnation?

_ Take careful note of the language in this stanza, in the mother versus child opposition? Are they representative of mankind versus God?


Stanza 6. _ How does the mother's (Church's) words fall short when a person is suffering? Does it? Is it the person who falls short?

_ What is an Ave Maria? Is it Lutheran? Catholic? Can a Catholic credo help in a Lutheran world? Remember their was a true difference in the two codes.

_ "Wise and great are the doings of God" Lenore is told, how does that play if Lenora represents humankind?

_ Lenora is living in darkness, so what are the implied meanings of "there is no more day[?]" And how are hope and prayer opposites?




Stanza 7. _ This is indeed the answer the Church gives: The bread and the wine from the hand divine / Shall make thy tempered grief less wild." How does she answer this? Can the hope of eternal reward help us against the grief of the present?

_ Finally we are getting foreshadowing of the arrival of a vampire -- his hand "creeping" from his grave.

Stanza 8. _ How does the word "Faith" work here? (At least two ways.)

_ If he lives without faith, his heart will endure storm (Gothic influence here).

_What is the biblical "pearl" of great price?

Stanza 9. Note the repetition here! Note the deepening of the gothic?

_ Is suicide a sin? In this time it was one of the ways to become a vampire.

_ What are the two ways "spark of my life, down, down to the tomb" works?

_ Her totally normal grief makes her again question God's plan -- how many times is it now? Perhaps track this?

Stanza 10. _ Can someone else ask forgiveness for our sins, or must we do it ourselves?

Stanza 11. How does the repeat work? Does it deepen her sinfulness?

Stanza 12. I love the way the poet has "grief" performing the action in the first line here!

_ Her breast is being racked and torn, her brain is busy -- and her cry rises to the Power (Capitalized because it is a variant name of God) - thus the cry of her heart is heard? Great timing, right?

Stanza 13. Transition from mother and daughter to sin and daughter -- via the horse? What biblical horses are coming? What about the "door-plank thin?" What does it represent?

Stanza 14. She must unlock the gate and let him in. Traditional Vampire stuff?

_ Note that now she is indeed confronting sin, in the form of a vampire -- and the first person they come for is usually their loved ones (loved ones will let them in)!

Stanza 15. "dead midnight" is when he took saddle?_ He plans to be away with her before daylight (traditionally God's time).

_ Why does she try to convince him to stay?

Stanza 16. What state of mind must a person be in to abandon all security and the loving comfort of home to rush off through the night for a hundred mile trip on horseback?

_ She is to "lay down" on the bridal bed?

_ Note the horse he rides -- it will appear in many other vampire stories and poems!

Stanza 17. Have you noted the time problem? He left at midnight to get to her, and now the bell is ringing eleven?

_ "'Tis for a wager'?" that her eternal soul and present life will be lost? What sort of lover does this?

_ More foreshadowing -- "we and the dead gallop fast"

Stanza 18. Isn't this a great description of the vampire's bed and bedroom? And there's room for two?

Stanza 19. She dresses well for this trip, and is gentle and sweet towards this love.

Stanza 20. This stanza is almost all word-play and foreshadowing. Can you see how it works? Can you see the irony -- is the dead asleep or dusty?

Stanza 21. Did you note all the oppositional contrasts in this stanza? The breeze is cool and soft as it carries the sound of the "alert that this is "the passing dead?" The chant if "hissing an harsh" as though it is not a nice thing happening. And what sort of burial takes place in the dead of the night?

Stanza 22. They are burying the corpse at midnight, while he is bringing home his bride? __ Is a "Friar" a Lutheran creature?_ One speaks a blessing over the dead, and at a wedding? What is the difference? How is the marriage representational of our entry to eternal life?

Stanza 23. He controls the funeral train? Youch! __ How does the usage pattern of rhythm, alliteration,and repeat compare with that seen before?_ Sparks fly at their passing?

Stanza 24. Time does indeed pass too fast as we rush towards death (just a note).

_ This is his second question as to what she fears of the dead. In stanza 20, the dead were quiet -- and again they are here. Now she says they should be "alone" in their bed.

_ And again "the dead men ride through the night."

Stanza 25. What relevance does his invitation to the dead to join his marriage train have? And note the "planks of the marriage-bed" now close the two in?

Stanza 26. This is almost an entirely repeated stanza; why?

Stanza 27. Does the rhythm work in the first four lines? How does it work?

_ This is the third time she has been asked if she fears the quiet dead? And is it a "brave" man who "rides through the night?

Stanza 28. Again we hear that he must finish the ride before dawn. He implores his horse to speed? Is the horse also dead?_ "the speed of the deadman?" Isn't she getting a clue?

Stanza 29. They have arrived at the cemetery, and we are getting no protest from her? _ Iron? why state the sort of metal on the gate?_ The rider can open bolts and break and bend the bars into death?_ Opposition: grassy and grim?

Stanza 30. Now we are seeing the real being under the glamour that has been cast? Compare the two? Although we have gotten no real physical description of William until now.

__ Vampires in this world look like: fleshless hairless, naked skulls, as opposed to the life-like mask he has worn? Do we all wear life-like masks?

_ He now bears the emblems of death -- a scythe and a hourglass. Traditional, no?

Stanza 31. Can the horse bear him now that he is death? Can a man truly say what happens to any person who leaves their sight?__ The ground is now gaping?__ Is this the traditional view of hell? "groans, shrieks, howling, wailing?__ Now her soul fights, now that she has reached the gate of hell. __ Does anyones' soul fight quite so hard as when it is threatened directly with death? Are there atheists in foxholes?

Stanza 32. Does she go to heaven when she dies? She has questioned God; she has condemned God, so does she get carried to hell?

Why is this called a vampire poem?