#ellensferatu

"Remember."

Long before Nosferatu (2024), Gothic literature had already imagined a woman like Ellen. Her name was Lenore.

Written in 1793, Bürger’s ballad tells the story of a young woman who questions God and calls her dead lover back from the grave... And the night answers her.

  The ballad caused quite a sensation in its time and was considered rather explicit and scandalous. Lenore was described as “heated,” “temperamental,” “shameless”… When I first read the ballad in my own language, I found nothing provocative in it at all, not even by 18th-century standards. But while preparing material for this article, I came across critics’ observations that Bürger’s original German Lenore is far sharper, more bodily, and more audacious than many of her “sisters,” whose behaviour was softened by the tradition of translation.

(This is Part 2 of the article, Part 1 is here)

According to the plot, Lenore is visited by her dead fiancé Wilhelm, who comes to take her away with him.

Up, up and away! I must not stay: Mount swiftly behind me! up, up and away! An hundred miles must be ridden and sped Ere we may lie down on the bridal-bed.

“Mount swiftly behind me,” Wilhelm says in the translation. But his original German counterpart is far more explicit with his bride:

Komm, schürze, spring' und schwinge dich Auf meinen Rappen hinter mich!

“Komm, schürze, spring' und schwinge dich” literally means “lift your skirt and jump on”(bounce on it crazy style?😆) For the 18th century, this was considered astonishingly bold, almost erotic literature. And Lenore herself, in the original, does not affect modesty either. She does not need to be asked twice: she jumps onto the horse and presses herself against Wilhelm with her whole body, without the slightest embarrassment:

Liebchen schürzte, sprang und schwang Sich auf das Ross behende; Wohl um den trauten Reiter schlang Sie ihre Liljenhände;

“Schlang” literally means “serpent,” “to coil like a snake” (a serpent again? Like a serpent crawling in her body? But it was herrr naturrrrre!😅)

In the English translation, Lenore behaves far more modestly. The translator merely notes that she “busked her well,” after which she playfully and cheerfully embraces the rider, carefully avoiding too open an expression of desire:

She busked her well, and into the selle She sprang with nimble haste, -- And gently smiling, with a sweet beguiling, Her white hands clasped his waist:

The ride itself, with its rhythm, repeated exclamations, accelerating tempo, and persistent imagery of the “bridal bed,” has long been read by scholars as a transparent metaphor for sexual union — swift, forbidden, and leading beyond the limits of what is permitted. In the English and other versions, this bodily force is smoothed out: gestures become “gentle,” intonations turn plaintive, and Lenore increasingly appears as a victim of deception. Yet in Bürger’s version she is the one who calls, who presses herself close, and who rides toward death not out of naïveté, but out of desire. Does that remind you of anyone?

“I give you three nights!”

“But Orlok… I’m already horny…”

“I told you: three nights!”

“You revel in my torture! 😭”

The Snapewives caught my attention not even because studying someone else’s hyperfixation is interesting (when you yourself are an absolutely unhinged Nosferatu freak). What caught my attention was that the precondition for the emergence of the cult was “canonical skepticism” toward Rowling. That is, within the fandom there existed (and probably still exists) a certain group of people who disagreed with the author and believed that she treated Snape somehow unfairly. I myself am not in the Harry Potter fandom at all — as a child I only read the first book — but I can imagine the situation. Probably in many fandoms there are people who reject something from the canon, who don’t care about the author’s opinion, and who think they know better… But those are usually a minority, right?

But the thing is that in our fandom, Nosferatu, everything is the exact opposite! I hope that someday there will be people who will want to study this phenomenon as well. In many interviews the director and the team say that the story is about a love triangle, that Ellen longs for Orlok, is dissatisfied with her marriage, and is a victim of the 19th century. At the same time, a huge part of the fandom continues to believe that Ellen hated Orlok and sacrificed herself for the good of all humanity.

Before I entered the Nosferatu fandom, I liked the theory of the death of the author: a sort of postmodern indulgence for any interpretation of the original. Indeed, everyone understands things however they want! And I am still not at all against everyone reading the story however they like. But here something else is happening: the author’s opinion is simply ignored — to such an extent that some bloggers do not even mention it among the respectable interpretations. And people who try to protect the director's vision are even bullied sometimes.

Ellen pining... but not for God. She secretly fondles a nearby gravestone.

“You may run, Ellen…,” he whispered. “But there is nowhere in this world you could hide from me.” She trembled. Blind to the world, every touch felt magnified a thousandfold. “You know that, do you not?” Orlok asked, and his wide hand ran down the length of her body. She tried to nod, forgetting her head was still bound in place. “Yes.”

— Chapter 56, '...Or Beyond?', Begging For A Nightmare (Nosferatu 2024 fanfic by Noella) (ellen & orlok) 🦇 Gothic Romance | Possessive Devotion | Emotional Confrontation

➤ Read the full chapter on AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/63766201/chapters/229384096