Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
This chapter explores how John Logan’s Gothic television series Penny Dreadful (2014–2016) deploys various medieval motifs to reimagine the nineteenth-century fin-de-siècle on screen. Adapting Andrew B. R. Elliott’s analysis of the repurposing of the Middle Ages in mass media, I trace the ideological implications of the amalgamation of the neo-Victorian and neomedieval in a postmodern product for mass consumption. On the basis of the show’s encoded medievalism, introduced through tropes of witchcraft and spiritualism, monster-avengers, and allusions to female mysticism, I argue that both “the medieval” and “the Victorian” as specific historical referents mutate into amorphous floating signifiers of generalized attitudes toward the past as barbaric and backward. Penny Dreadful draws not only on the Middle Ages but also on nineteenth-century remediations of the earlier period, thus accentuating the show’s Gothic narrative and constructing the Victorian fin-de-siècle as a new “Dark Age”, particularly inimical to women.
Akilli, Sinan and Seda Őz. “‘No More Let Life Divide …’: Victorian Metropolitan Confluence in Penny Dreadful.” Critical Survey, vol. 28, no. 1, 2016, pp. 15–29.
Albertsen, Anita Nell Bech. “Palimpsest characters in transfictional storytelling: on migrating Penny Dreadful characters from television to comic books.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 33, no. 2, 2019, pp. 242–57.
Arata, Stephen D. “The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonization.” Victorian Studies, vol. 33, no. 4, Summer 1990, pp. 621–45.
Artt, Sarah. “‘An otherness that cannot be sublimated’: Shades of Frankenstein in Penny Dreadful and Black Mirror.” Science Fiction Film and Television, vol. 11, no. 2, 2018, pp. 257–75.
Barr, Caelainn, Alexandra Topping and Owen Bowcott. “Rape prosecutions and convictions dropped by half early in UK pandemic.” The Guardian [online], 22 Oct. 2020, n.p. https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/oct/22/prosecutions-for-crimes-against-female-victims-in-uk-dropped-amid-referral-rise-lockdown-covid. Accessed 29 May 2021.
Buckley, Chloé Germaine. “A tale of two women: the female grotesque in Showtime’s Penny Dreadful.” Feminist Media Studies, vol. 20, no. 3, May 2020, pp. 361–80.
Carrel, Severin. “Campaign to pardon the last witch, jailed as a threat to Britain at war.” The Guardian [online], 13 Jan. 2007, n.p. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jan/13/secondworldwar.world. Accessed 20 July 2018.
Castelow, Ellen. “Witches in Britain.” Historic UK, n.p. https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Witches-in-Britain/. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020.
Chambers, Robert. “October 8th.” Book of Days; A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar, Including Anecdote, Biography, & History, Curiosities of Literature and Oddities of Human Life and Character, 1869. Reproduced as Hillman’s Hyperlinked and Searchable Chambers’ Book of Days, Emmitsburg,net, n.d., n.p.. http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/oct/8.htm. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.
Chambers, Vanessa. “The Witchcraft Act wasn’t about women on brooms.” The Guardian [online], 24 Jan. 2007, n.p. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jan/24/comment.comment3. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.
Derakhshani, Tirdad. “Showtime’s sexy, gothic ‘Penny Dreadful’ breathes poetry.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1 May 2015, n.p. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/entertainment/television/20150503_Showtime_s_sexy__gothic__Penny_Dreadful__breathes_poetry.html. Accessed 1 June 2021.
Elliott, Andrew B. R. Medievalism, Politics and Mass Media: Appropriating the Middle Ages in the Twenty-first Century. D. S. Brewer, 2017.
Freedman, Paul and Gabrielle M. Spiegel. “Medievalisms Old and New: The Rediscovery of Alterity in North American Medieval Studies.” The American Historical Review, vol. 103, no. 3, June 1998, pp. 677–704.
Gritten, David. “Penny Dreadful: a journey into the Victorian supernatural from the writer of Bond.” The Telegraph [online], 10 May 2014, n.p. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10804419/Penny-Dreadful-a-journey-into-the-Victorian-supernatural-from-the-writer-of-Bond.html. Accessed 26 Sept. 2018.
Heilmann, Ann, and Mark Llewellyn. Neo-Victorianism: The Victorians in the Twenty-First Century, 1999–2009. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Heilmann, Ann, and Mark Llewellyn. “The Victorians now: global reflections on neo-Victorianism.” Critical Quarterly, vol. 55, no.1, Apr. 2013, pp. 24–42. Special Issue: Victorian Studies.
Hodgman, Charlotte. “The war on witches” [orig. publ. in Nov. 2010 in BBC History Magazine], HistoryExtra, 2010, n.p. https://www.historyextra.com/period/the-war-on-witches/. Accessed 20 Nov. 2020.
Ho, Elizabeth. Neo-Victorianism and the Memory of Empire. Continuum, 2012.
Holsinger, Bruce. “Empire, Apocalypse, and the 9/11 Premodern.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 34, no. 3, Spring 2008, pp. 468–90.
Holsinger, Bruce. “Medievalization Theory: From Toqueville to the Cold War.” American Literary History, vol. 22, no. 4, Winter 2010, pp. 893–912. Special Issue: Medieval America.
Kaplan, Cora. Victoriana—Histories, Fictions, Criticism. Edinburgh UP, 2007.
Kennedy, Maev. “Watercolor of Rossetti’s long-haired muse to be auctioned in July.” The Guardian [online], 31 May 2017, n.p. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/may/31/watercolour-rossetti-long-haired-muse-to-go-under-the-hammer. Accessed 30 May 2021.
Kohlke, Marie-Luise. “The Lures of neo-Victorianism [sic] presentism (with a feminist case study of Penny Dreadful).’ Literature Compass, vol. 15, no. 7, July 2018, e12463. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12463. Special Issue: Neo-Victorian Considerations.
Kohlke, Marie-Luise. “Neo-Victorian Slumming in London’s Gothicity: The Victorian Metropolis’ Televisual Transformation into ‘The City of Dreadful Night.’” Transforming Cities: Discourses of Urban Change, edited by Monika Prietzrak-Franger, Nora Pleßke, and Eckart Voigts, Universitätsverlag WINTER, 2018, pp. 181–209.
Kontou, Tatiana. Spiritualism and Women’s Writing: From the Fin de Siècle to the Neo-Victorian. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Lamb, Charles. “Oxford in the Vacation.” The Essays of Elia and Eliana, a New Edition. George Bell & Sons, 1877, pp. 9–16. https://ia904700.us.archive.org/0/items/essaysofeliaelia00lamb/essaysofeliaelia00lamb.pdf. Accessed 3 Mar. 2024.
Larsen, Andrew E. “Penny Dreadful: The Devi’s Autobiography.” [Blog], posted on Penny Dreadful, Pseudohistory, TV Shows, An Historian Goes to the Movies: Exploring history on the screen, 31 July 2016, n.p. https://aelarsen.wordpress.com/category/penny-dreadful/. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.
Larsen, Andrew E. “Penny Dreadful: A Few Last Thoughts.” An Historian Goes to the Movies: Exploring history on the screen, 12 August 2016, n.p. https://aelarsen.wordpress.com/category/penny-dreadful/. Blog post. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.
Lee, Alison, and Frederick D. King. “From Text, to Myth, to Meme: Penny Dreadful and Adaptation.” Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens, vol. 82, automne 2015, para. 1–19. https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2343. Accessed 13 Feb. 2021. Special Issue: New Perspectives on Film Adaptations of 19th-Century Novels and Short Stories.
Louttit, Chris. “Victorian London Redux: Adapting the Gothic Metropolis.” Critical Survey, vol. 28, no. 1, 2016, pp. 2–14.
Magliocco, Sabina. “Reclamation, Appropriation and the Ecstatic Imagination in Modern Pagan Ritual.” Handbook of Contemporary Paganism, edited by Murphy Pizza and James R. Lewis, Brill, 2009, pp. 223–40.
Magnani, Roberta, and Diane Watt. “Editor’s Introduction: Towards a queer philology.” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies, vol. 9, no. 3, Sept. 2018, pp. 252–68. Special Issue: Queer Manuscripts.
Manea, Dragoș. “A Wolf’s Eye View of London: Dracula, Penny Dreadful, and the Logic of Repetition.” Critical Survey, vol. 28, no. 1, 2016, pp. 40–50. Special Issue: British Gothic: “Penny Dreadful” (2016). Marcoux, J. Paul. Guilbert de Pixerécourt: French Melodrama in the Early Nineteenth Century. Peter Lang, 1992.
McClements, Freya. “Papers alleging British Army waterboarding in NI uncovered.” The Irish Times [online], 26 June 2017, n.p. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/papers-alleging-british-army-waterboarding-in-ni-uncovered-1.3133074. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.
McLean, Gareth. “Compelling, seductive horror: have you been watching Penny Dreadful?” The Guardian [online], 19 May 2015, n.p. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/may/19/compelling-seductive-horror-have-you-been-watching-penny-dreadful. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.
National Library of Scotland. “Witches: The real ‘Janet Horne.’” Source and activity 6, 2021, n.p. https://www.nls.uk/learning-zone/literature-and-language/themes-in-focus/witches/source-6/#:|:text=Janet%20Horne%20was%20the%20last,in%20her%20hands%20and%20feet. Accessed 29 May 2021.
National Library of Sweden. “Select Images [of the Codex Gigas].” N.d., n.p. https://www.kb.se/in-english/the-codex-gigas/select-images.html. Accessed 15 June 2018.
Obermeier, Anita. “Witches and the Myth of the Medieval Burning Times.” Misconceptions about the Middle Ages, edited by Stephen J. Harris and Bryon L. Grigsby, Routledge, 2008, pp. 218–29.
Office of National Statistics. “Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview: November 2020.” 2020, n.p. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/domesticabuseandthecriminaljusticesystemenglandandwales/november2020. Accessed 29 May 2021.
Payne, Ann. Medieval Beasts. The British Library Board, 1990.
Petroff, Elizabeth Alvilda. Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism. Oxford UP, 1994.
Phillips, Kim M. “Warriors, Amazons, and Isles of Women: Medieval Travel Writing and Constructions of Asian Femininities.” Intersections of Gender, Religion and Ethnicity in the Middle Ages, edited by C. Beattie and K. A. Fenton, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 183–207. Genders and Sexualities in History series.
Poore, Benjamin. “The Transformed Beast.” Victoriographies, vol. 6, no. 1, March 2016, pp. 62–81. Special Issue: Victorian Television.
Primorac, Antonija. Neo-Victorianism on Screen: Postfeminism and Contemporary Adaptations of Victorian Women. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey. “Punishment Sentences at the Old Bailey.” The Proceedings of the Old Bailey: London’s Central Criminal Court, 1674–1913, 2018, n.p. https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Punishment.jsp#:|:text=Branding%20as%20a%20punishment%20for,received%20the%20sentence%20in%201789. Accessed 15 Jan. 2021.
Roberts, Helene E. “Victorian Medievalism: Revival or Masquerade?” Browning Institute Studies, vol. 8, 1980, pp. 11–44.
Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. 1972. Cornell UP, 1984.
Sadoff, Dianne F., and John Kucich. “Introduction: Histories of the Present.” Victorian Afterlife: Postmodern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century, edited by John Kucich and Dianne F. Sadoff, U of Minnesota P, 2000, pp. IX–XXX.
Salisbury, Joyce E. The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages. 1994. Routledge, 2011.
San Francisco Symphony. “Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde” [Program Notes]. May 2019, n.p., https://www.sfsymphony.org/Data/Event-Data/Program-Notes/W/Prelude-and-Liebestod-from-Tristan-und-Isolde. Accessed 30 May 2021.
Sarner, Lauren. “‘Penny Dreadful’ is Proving that Misandry in Feminism Can Be Fun.” Inverse, 14 June 2016, n.p. https://www.inverse.com/article/16975-penny-dreadful-is-proving-that-misandry-in-feminism-can-be-fun. Accessed 16 Feb. 2021.
Schäfer, Dennis. “Nosferatu Revisited: Monstrous Female Agency in Penny Dreadful.” Gender Forum: An Internet Journal for Gender Studies, no. 60, 2016, pp. 43–56.
Scrymgeour, Duncan Scott. “What did Vanessa Ives say to Lucifer in verbis diablo in the finale of Penny Dreadful Season 2?” [Blog Post Answer to Query]. Quora, n.d., n.p. https://www.quora.com/What-did-Vanessa-Ives-say-to-Lucifer-in-verbis-diablo-in-the-finale-of-Penny-Dreadful-Season-2. Accessed 30 Sept. 2020.
Sokol, Tony. “Penny Dreadful: Verbis Diablo, Review.” Den of Geek, 11 May 2015, n.p. http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/penny-dreadful/246124/penny-dreadful-verbis-diablo-review. Accessed 30 Sept. 2020.
Stock, Brian. “The Middle Ages as Subject and Object: Romantic Attitudes and Academic Medievalism.” New Literary History, vol. 5, no. 3, Spring 1974, pp. 527–47. Special Issue: History and Criticism: I.
Sweet, Matthew. Inventing the Victorians. 2001. Faber and Faber, 2002.
“Thornnightwind.” “Cicle Movements & Ecstasy—Rapture in the Wicca Circle.” Coven of the Wolfa, 12 May 2019, n.p. https://covenofthewolfa.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/circle-movements-ecstasy-rapture-in-the-wicca-circle/. Accessed 29 May 2021.
UK Parliament. “Violence against women and girls Sixth Report of Session 2014–15.” 2015, pp. 1–100. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201415/jtselect/jtrights/106/106.pdf. Accessed 15 May 2021.
UK Parliament. “Witchcraft.” UK Parliament, 2021, n.p. https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/religion/overview/witchcraft/#:|:text=In%201736%20Parliament%20passed%20an,able%20to%20use%20magical%20powers. Accessed 14 Jan. 2021.
Unsworth, C. R. “Witchcraft Beliefs and Criminal Procedure in Early Modern England.” 1989. New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology, edited by Brian P. Levack, vol. 3: Witchcraft in the British Isles and New England, Routledge, 2001, pp. 1–28.
Waldman, Peter and Hugh Pope. “‘Crusade’ Reference Reinforces Fears War on Terrorism Is Against Muslims.” The Wall Street Journal, 21 Sept. 2001, n.p. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1001020294332922160. Accessed 25 May 2021.
Young, Paul. “Peripheralizing Modernity: Global Modernism and Uneven Development.” Literature Compass, vol. 9, no. 9, Sept. 2012, pp. 611–16. Special Issue: Global Circulation Project on Oxford Global Modernisms.
Bayona, J. A., director, and John Logan, writer. “Séance.” Penny Dreadful, season 1, episode 2, 18 May 2014. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Cabezas, Paco, director, and John Logan, writer. “The Blessed Dark.” Penny Dreadful, season 3, episode 9, 19 June 2016. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Cabezas, Paco, director, and John Logan, writer. “Ebb Tide.” Penny Dreadful, season 3, episode 7, 12 June 2016. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Giedroyc, Coky, director, and John Logan, writer. “Closer Than Sisters.” Penny Dreadful, season 1, episode 5, 8 June 2014. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Handfield, Don and Richard Rayner. Knightfall (television series). A + E Studios, 2017–19.
Hawes, James, director, and John Logan, writer. “Fresh Hell.” Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 1, 3 May 2015. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Hawes, James, director, and John Logan, writer. “Glorious Horrors.” Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 6, 7 June 2015. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Hawes, James, director, and John Logan, writer. “Verbis Diablo.” Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 2, 10 May 2015. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Kirk, Brian, director, and John Logan, writer. “And They Were Enemies.” Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 10, 5 July 2015. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Kirk, Brian, director, and John Logan, writer. “Little Scorpion.” Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 7, 14 July 2015. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Kirk, Brian, director, and John Logan, writer. “The Nightcomers.” Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 3, 17 May 2015. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Penny Dreadful: Video Production Blog. “Evelyn Poole’s Mansion.” YouTube, 2015. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKyYQeSZx6s. Accessed 15 Jan. 2021.
Skogland, Kari, director, and John Logan, writer. “Memento Mori.” Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 8, 21 July 2015. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Thomas, Damon, director, and John Logan, writer. “Evil Spirits in Heavenly Places.” Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 4, 24 May 2015. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Thomas, Damon, director, and John Logan, writer. “Good and Evil Braided Be.” Penny Dreadful, season 3, episode 3, 15 May 2016. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Walsh, Dearbhla, director, and John Logan, writer. “Demimonde.” Penny Dreadful, season 1, episode 4, 1 June 2014. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Walsh, Dearbhla, director, and John Logan, writer. “Resurrection.” Penny Dreadful, Season 1, episode 3, 25 May 2014. Sky Atlantic & Showtime/CBS, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 136 | 110 | 20 |
Full Text Views | 4 | 4 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 10 | 3 | 0 |
Terms and Conditions | Privacy Statement | Cookie Settings | Accessibility | Legal Notice | Sitemap | Copyright © 2016-2025