Thursday, February 17, 2011

La Morte Amoureuse

Theophile Gautier
Theophile Gautier's "La Morte Amoureuse" is a short vampire story about a young priest, Romuald, who is first haunted and then seduced by the beautiful vampire Clarimonde. First published in La Chronique de Paris in 1836, the story is one of the first and most influential vampire stories written in the nineteenth century.

Characters
Clarimonde - the femme fatale and loving vampire who falls in love with Romuald.
Romuald - the young priest whose moral dilemmas and erroneous choices prove tragic to himself and to Clarimonde.
Serapion - Romuald's spiritual guide and the antithesis to Clarimonde.


Synopsis
Romuald is a young man who has always lived a cloistered life studying to be a priest. On the day of his ordination, he espies a beautiful woman in the Cathedral and he falls in love with her. In spite of this, he takes his vows anyway and is assigned to a small parish.
One night a messenger arrives summoning him to the house of the beautiful courtesan Clarimonde who is dying. When he arrives there, Romuald is overwhelmed by the 'dead' woman's beauty and kisses her. Clarimonde wakes up and from that night onwards they become lovers. Romuald starts leading a double life: by day he is the timid, humble priest and by night he is his own arrogant and wealthy alter-ego, Clarimonde's lover.
Romuald the priest, however, is consumed by guilt and he confides in Serapion, an older priest who urges him to betray the vampire's whereabouts ...



"La Morte Amoureuse" was made into a TV film in 1997/8 in the series The Hunger. The title of the episode is Clarimonde and stars Audrey Benoit as Clarimonde, David la Haye as Romuald and James Bradford as Abbe Seraphon.


Read it or listen to it Online


The text in English:
http://www04.us.archive.org/stream/greatshortstori01brangoog#page/n11/mode/1up

The text in French:
http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/gautier_theophile/morte_amoureuse/morte_amoureuse_print.pdf

French audio version of the story:
http://www.litteratureaudio.com/livre-audio-gratuit-mp3/gautier-theophile-la-morte-amoureuse.html

The Film
http://welcome-to-monster-land.blogspot.com/2009/08/hungry-for-clarimonde.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0608305/

Or buy new from Amazon


1 comment:

  1. Clarimonde is one of my favorite vampire stories, writing and imagery are ravishingly beautiful. I have seen TV episode too, it was well-made and rather faithful, with good set design and Audrey Benoit as impressive succubus, but it changed Clarimonde from vampire in love to sex demon in prowl.

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