Dracula, le monstre et les savants : entre Darwin et Bunyan

Among the novel’s characters, two are well identified scientists, Seward and Van Helsing; but a third also plays a major, though covert, role in it. Mina mentions the names of Nordau and Lombroso quite late in the book (chapter XXV); however, the latter had begun to leave his mark on the narrative almost from the very start: much of Dracula’s “physiognomy” is borrowed from Lombroso’s description of the “born criminal”, the anthropological type defined in L’uomo Deliquente. The same is true with Renfield’s “temperament”. Lombroso’s view was that the two human types linked in Dracula (the “born criminal” and the “morally insane man”) are basically one. This theory thus proves a significant contribution to the structure of the book. The presence of such a scientific layer beneath the more conspicuous layer of Transylvanian legends and superstitions also leads to a reassessment of Stoker’s work which could then be seen as adapting Bunyan’s technique of multiple allegory to a Victorian intellectual context.