Old Knights of the Cross, up to Date with a Vengeance: Bram Stoker's <i>Dracula</i> as Unholy Grail Quest

Despite Van Helsing's assertion that the vampire hunters shall act as ‘old knights of the cross’, there has been little scholarly attention given to the influences of medieval literature and culture on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula. The narrative has been read as a gothic catalogue of fin-de-siècle cultural concerns; however, Van Helsing's identification with knights of the cross casts the protagonists as crusaders, and the pursuit of the vampire thus becomes a quest for an unholy grail. Previous scholarship has focused primarily on the Middle Ages as an aesthetic atmosphere within the text, but I argue that there is a more deliberate inclusion of a medieval intertext within Dracula, and that Stoker's knowledge of medieval literature is more extensive than has previously been acknowledged. Though there is no literal Grail Quest within the novel, there is nevertheless a transference of images and themes from Thomas Malory to Stoker. Dracula will be read through the lens of Malory's Le Morte Darthur in order to demonstrate how medieval constructions of chivalry and quest narratives were used by Stoker in his construction of the vampire.