A comparative analysis of literary classics in Penny Dreadful: contemporary adaptations of Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula

Along centuries literature has been constantly adapted. Many works have been rewritten or re-interpreted depending on the innovations suffered by each period of time. A great number of visual reinventions of the classics started to emerge during the entire 20th century in cinema and television due to innovations in technology and the insertion of the TV into the everyday life of society. Penny Dreadful it is a 2014 show created by John Logan which adapts English horror classics such as Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula. What is different about Penny Dreadful is the mixture of the classics’ worlds into one big contemporary Gothic narrative located in the Victorian London. In this dissertation, a comparative analysis of the Gothic works and the corresponding adaptations in Penny Dreadful is accomplished.Durante siglos las adaptaciones de obras literarias han sido constantes; muchas obras se han reescrito o reinterpretado dependiendo de las innovaciones de cada época. Un gran número de reinvenciones de clásicos aparecieron en el cine y televisión debido a las innovaciones en la teconología y la inserción de la televisión en la sociedad. Penny Dreadful es una serie de 2014 creada por John Logan que adapta varias obras clásicas inglesas tales como Frankenstein, El Retrato de Dorian Gray o Drácula. Lo que diferencia a Penny Dreadful es la mezcla de los mundos de estos tres clásicos en una narrativa gótica contemporánea situada en la época Victoriana en Londres. En este trabajo, llevo a cabo un análisis comparativo de las novelas góticas y sus respectivas adaptaciones en Penny Dreadful.Departamento de Filología InglesaGrado en Estudios Inglese

The Curious Case of Vanessa Ives: The Portrait of a Witch in Penny Dreadful.

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Transmedia Worldbuilding and Mashup Mythology in Penny Dreadful

By focusing on the merged and interfigural nature of the characters and mythology in the Penny Dreadful transmedia world, this article seeks to demonstrate that transmedia characters are essential to transmedia worlds; they are anchors from which plots and mythology develop and expand. This is contrary to what is proposed by, for instance, Susana Tosca and Lisbeth Klastrup in earlier versions of their transmedial world theory, where character in their own formulation were “subsumed under the category of mythos” (Tosca & Klastrup 2020, 37). Instead, this article argues for the opposite scenario, that the construction of mythology in Penny Dreadful’s transmedia world is intricately tied to specific mythic plot structures, defining character conflicts, character narrators, and to serialized character development as well as character elaboration across media

Late Victorian Sexuality and Spiritualism: The Place of the Paranormal in Queer Erotic Partnerships

This dissertation argues that fin de siecle navigations of emerging categories of sexual identity were partially expressed in literary representations of supernatural connections, transformations, events, and practices. I build on Sexuality Studies and Queer Theory foundations by such scholars as Foucault, Halberstam, and Warner along with New Historicist scholarship about spiritualism in the nineteenth century to examine the connections between aberrant erotic desires and alternative forms of spirituality. Through readings of the anonymous Teleny (1893), Wilde\u27s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Richard Marsh\u27s The Beetle , and the poetry of Michael Field, I assert that queer sexual identities and acts, unspeakable, unfixed, and nebulous in the late Victorian years, were supported, represented, and navigated in these works through the use of spiritualism of various kinds. I conclude my project by examining how the Neo-Victorian Showtime series Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) reshapes Victorian practices into a new resource for the modern LGBTQ+ community, demonstrating the continuing importance of spiritualism and sexual desire in non-traditional identity and relationship building

“Hice lo que otros hicieron y lo que otros me obligaron a hacer”: (Falsas)Representaciones poscoloniales y el trauma del perpetrador en la primera temporada de Taboo (2017-)

Neo-Victorian fiction has been concerned with historically oppressed and traumatised characters from the 1990s onwards (Llewellyn 2008). More recently, neo-Victorianism on screen has shifted its attention to the figure of the perpetrator and their unresolved guilt, as in the TV series Penny Dreadful (Logan 2014-2016) or Taboo (Knight, Hardy and Hardy 2017-present). However, perpetrator trauma is an under-theorised field in the humanities (Morag 2018), neo-Victorian studies included. This article analyses Taboo as a neo-Victorian postcolonial text that explores the trauma of its protagonist James Delaney, an imperial perpetrator who transported and sold African slaves in the Middle Passage for the East India Company. Although the series is not set in the Victorian period, neo-Victorianism is here understood as fiction expanding beyond the historical boundaries of the Victorian era and that presents the long nineteenth century as synonymous with the empire (Ho 2012: 4). Thus, I argue that postcolonial texts like Taboo should be considered neo-Victorian since they are set in the nineteenth century to respond to and contest (neo-)imperial practices. However, neo-Victorian postcolonialism offers ambivalent representations of the British Empire, as it simultaneously critiques and reproduces its ideologies (Ho 2012; Primorac 2018). This article examines the ways in which Taboo follows this contradictory pattern, since it seemingly denounces the imperial atrocity of the slave trade through Delaney’s perpetrator trauma, while simultaneously perpetuating it through his future colonizing trip to the Americas. Hence, Delaney is portrayed as an anti-hero in the series, given that he is both the enemy and the very product of the British Empire.La ficción neovictoriana se ha centrado en personajes históricamente oprimidos y traumatizados de los años noventa en adelante (Llewellyn 2008). Más recientemente, el neovictorianismo audiovisual ha desviado su atención hacia la figura del perpetrador y su culpa no resuelta, como es el caso de las series de televisión Penny Dreadful (Logan 2014-2016) o Taboo (Knight, Hardy and Hardy 2017-actualidad). Sin embargo, el trauma del perpetrador es un campo poco teorizado en las humanidades (Morag 2018), incluyendo los estudios neovictorianos. En este artículo analizamos Taboo como un texto poscolonial neovictoriano que explora el trauma de su protagonista James Delaney, un perpetrador al servicio del imperio que transportó y vendió esclavos africanos en el pasaje del Atlántico medio para la Compañía de las Indias Orientales. Aunque la serie no está ambientada en la época victoriana, entendemos el neovictorianismo como una ficción que se expande más allá de los límites históricos del victorianismo y que presenta el largo siglo XIX como sinónimo del imperio (Ho 2012: 4). Por lo tanto, defendemos que textos poscoloniales como Taboo deben considerarse neovictorianos, ya que el largo siglo XIX es utilizado para responder y cuestionar prácticas (neo)imperiales. Sin embargo, el poscolonialismo neovictoriano ofrece representaciones ambivalentes del Imperio Británico, ya que simultáneamente crÍtica y reproduce sus ideologías (Ho 2012; Primorac 2018). En este artículo examinamos las formas en que Taboo sigue dicho patrón, ya que aparentemente denuncia la atrocidad imperial del comercio de esclavos a través del trauma del perpetrador Delaney, pero al mismo tiempo lo perpetúa a través de su futuro viaje colonizador a América. Por lo tanto, Delaney es retratado como un antihéroe en la serie, ya que es tanto enemigo como producto del propio Imperio Británico

Subverting the canon: the vampire archetype and the steampunk vamp

Esta dissertação tem como objectivo analisar os diferentes modos em que o arquétipo do vampirismo se tem modificado das normas convencionais e como prevaleceu. Tem por objectivo analisar como os vampiros foram inicialmente descritos e como Bram Stoker incorpora este arquétipo vampiresco na sua obra Dracula, reconhecendo o propósito que esta descrição servia no final do século XIX. Esta dissertação tem também como objectivo não só revelar a investigação da obra Dracula de Bram Stoker, mas também o modo como o neovitorianismo e o steampunk abordaram o vampirismo. Tem como intenção examinar como o livro Johnny Alucard de Kim Newman desafia o arquétipo do vampiro e o transforma num ‘steampunk vamp’. Em suma, a finalidade é examinar como as adaptações contemporâneas não só modificaram o arquétipo do vampiro como também revelaram a ansiedade escondida e a subversão do convencional cânone literário do vampiro.This dissertation intends to analyze the different ways in which the archetype of vampirism has altered from conventional norms, and how it has endured. It aims to evaluate how vampires were initially portrayed, and how Bram Stoker incorporates this vampire archetype into his novel Dracula, acknowledging the purpose that this depiction served at the end the nineteenth century. This dissertation also aims to introduce what the investigation of Bram Stoker's Dracula reveals, and how neo-Victorianism and steampunk have addressed vampirism. It hopes to examine how Kim Newman's novel Johnny Alucard challenges the vampire archetype and morphs it into a ‘steampunk vamp’. In sum, the intention is to examine how contemporary adaptations have not only modified the vampire archetype, but also unveiled the hidden anxieties and subversions from the conventional literary canon of the vampire

“One of us”: Dorian Gray, Untimeliness, and Penny Dreadful’s Contemporary Victoriana

Le monde densément intertextuel de la série télévisée Penny Dreadful (Showtime/Sky, 2014-2016) revendique un imaginaire noir et gothique ; son Londres de la fin des années 1890 regorge de créatures monstrueuses empruntées à des œuvres littéraires du XIXe siècle, depuis Frankenstein de Mary Shelley (1818) jusqu’à Dracula de Bram Stoker (1897). Seul le personnage de Dorian Gray, inspiré du roman d’Oscar Wilde (1981), semble à même d’exprimer spécifiquement la décennie 1890 par le réseau de connotations décadentistes dont il enrichit l’univers de la série. Pourtant, la dissonance qu’il crée avec les stratégies gothiques de Penny Dreadful a plutôt tendance à le dissocier des autres personnages et de l’intrigue principale, à laquelle il ne parvient jamais entièrement à s’intégrer. Cette dissonance exacerbe, par conséquent, l’inactualité du personnage : le mouvement esthétique qu’il symbolise fait figure d’anachronisme dans l’univers ésotérique, surnaturel et scabreux de Penny Dreadful. Son intempestivité – une façon d’être contre et hors de son temps qui le caractérise dès sa création dans le roman de Wilde – devient une forme d’intemporalité au gré des réécritures du personnage, alors que d’immuablement beau, il accède peu à peu, dans la culture populaire, à l’immortalité en bonne et due forme. Penny Dreadful dépeint ainsi le décadentisme comme un phénomène à la fois intemporel et intempestif, permettant d’exprimer des angoisses contemporaines par le biais d’analogies esthétiques.The densely intertextual world of the TV series Penny Dreadful (Showtime/Sky, 2014-2016) mostly borrows its characters and thematic stakes from the Gothic horror genre; its imagined Victorian London is filled with monstrous creatures collected from heterogeneous literary periods, including Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) or Stoker’s Dracula (1897), and thus offers a dark but widely familiar take on the myth of the modern age and man. However, out of this diverse cast of Victorian literary archetypes, the character of Dorian Gray alone summons Decadence as a specific, circumscribed historical period and movement, notably through the artistic references he brings to the diegesis and the thematic content he has come to embody in popular culture. This dissonance with the predominantly Gothic strategies of the show sets him apart from the other characters and the main narrative and, consequently, intensifies the character’s untimeliness, portraying Decadence and Aestheticism as anachronisms within the esoteric, grittily supernatural world of Penny Dreadful. Dorian Gray’s untimeliness, already hinted at in 1891 by the infamous reviews of Wilde’s seminal novel, also becomes a form of timelessness through the narrative transformations which the character undergoes, from being gifted (or cursed) with eternal beauty to immortality. In keeping with the fruitful intertextual legacy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Penny Dreadful thus reimagines Decadence as a timeless phenomenon and an untimely period in History, one best suited to express contemporary fears in aesthetic terms