We don’t often look at poetry here at Paper Droids, so I’m going to shake things up a bit. Penny Dreadful gained popularity in its second season, so its passionate fandom means that it’s definitely appropriate for our horror-loving readers and poetry is essential to its characters.
Penny Dreadful has never tried to accurately represent the stories of the literary characters it brings to life, but it does a great job of capturing Victorian England. At least, Victorian England’s obsession with the macabre. Despite the late Victorian setting, the show has always been enamoured with Romantic poetry and its focus on strong emotion and introspection. Like the 19th century equivalent of a Tumblr fanmix, poetry can reflect stories and characters. Poetry has been ubiquitous on Penny Dreadful since the beginning: season one found the devil quoting Keats to seduce Vanessa and Victor unable to escape a line from Percy Shelley (perhaps creating some kind of reality warp). The second season introduced fewer literary references, but heavily featured the work of John Clare.
Clare is the perfect poet to complement this group of misfits and outcasts. In the early 19th century, parts of society believed firmly that poetry was a playing field only for the wealthy, so Clare’s lower-class status guaranteed his financial failure. He also struggled with alcoholism and mental health. When Frankenstein’s Monster christens himself after Clare, it’s not only for his love of poetry, but because he identifies with Clare’s experiences as a dejected outsider, feelings which informed much of his verse.
It’s unsurprising that Vanessa too is familiar with Clare’s work, and his poetry is the basis of one of the most unexpectedly affecting relationships on the show. Vanessa and the Creature (as I’ll call him to avoid confusion) bond over Clare’s “I Am!” giving us both some apt character study and the chance to hear two fantastic, theatrical actors recite poetry. The poem speaks of oppressive loneliness (“what I am none cares or knows; / My friends forsake me like a memory lost”), which could really describe any character on the show, but the implicit longing for death (“There to abide with my Creator, God, / And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept”) is especially apt for these two.
The episode “And Hell Itself My Only Foe” takes its title from another Clare poem, “I Lost the Love of Heaven.” Like Clare’s speaker, Vanessa longs to feel “the glow / Of heaven’s flame,” her firm Catholic beliefs helping combat her darkness within. This poem could be read ironically in Vanessa’s case, who has certainly “lost the love of heaven above” by the end of the second season. Spurning lust and earthly love help free the speaker of the poem, while Ethan’s rejection only leaves Vanessa more desperate and dejected. And it’s hard to say what the fate of her soul will be, but rebuffing both heaven and hell may keep Vanessa’s “spirit with the free,” although that certainly wouldn’t be Clare’s way of looking at it.
Verse isn’t as central to popular culture as it once was, but this show is using it in a smart and engaging way – “old” poetry can still be relevant. The official website even featured sound clips of the show’s actors reading snippets of Romantic poems, showing how central Romanticism is to the show’s world and tone. Clare’s poems, especially those focused on the outcast or spirituality, allow Penny Dreadful to comment on its own characters without verging into meta-fiction, adding another layer for literary geeks to appreciate. Penny Dreadful delivers all of the lurid shocks of its namesake trashy periodicals, but it’s also revitalizing its literature for a new, wider audience.
//Images via Showtime
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