I, parabare, vow to forever learn

Graduated in Computer Science, now studying English Philology 27 | she/her | INFP I mostly write, read, and study

[parabare-the-scholar]

References in Penny Dreadful

Characters from:

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Literature within the show:

THEATER:

The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare (Proteus is named after one of the characters of the play)

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare (Brand quotes it)

The Tempest by William Shakespeare (The Creature gets the name Caliban from here. Young Vanessa names a bird after Ariel)

Macbeth by William Shakespeare (this one is actually funny, because a witch quotes a line of one of the witches, and I enjoyed the parallelism)

Henry VI, Part 1 by William Shakespeare (Vanessa says she first met Joan of Arc in Shakespeare, this is the play where she appears)

The Maid of Orleans by Friedrich Schiller (Vanessa says she read this play about Joan of Arc, calling it just "the Schiller")

Sweeney Todd by Thomas Prest (?) (represented at the theater)

POETRY:

Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Frankenstein has the book)

Adonais by Percy B. Shelley (The Creature mentions it)

Wordsworth's Poetical Works (Young Frankenstein has the book)

Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats

The Poetical Works of Milton (The Creature gifts this book to Maude)

Paradise Lost by John Milton (Maud then says that The Creature's gift was this book, which has me confused but ok)

NOVEL:

Up North in a Whaler by Edward A. Rand (Frankenstein has the book)

Varney The Vampire (a Penny Dreadful that Professor Van Helsing gives to Victor)

One Thousand and One Nights (Mister Lyle mentions Aladdin, so let's say he got the reference from here)

The Bible (though it is odd to categorize it as a novel, but please allow me to do it for the sake of order)

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (Mister Lyle says to feel like a Lilliputian next to Ethan)

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne (Dracula is a fan)

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (The Creature's kid is reading this book)

A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson (The Creature read this to Vanessa in his past life :( )

Also mentioned:

John Keats (poet)

William Wordsworth (poet. He's a fav of the doctor's. Also the Creature's)

John Clare (poet. He's a fav of the Creature's)

Alfred Tennyson (poet. He dies. That's the only thing he does)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet)

William Makepeace Thackeray (writer)

Charles Dickens (writer. Most of these are mentioned by Mister Lyle)

Ibsen (playwright)

Henry Irving (actor)

Wagner (musician)

Audubon (painter)

I've also posted the specific poems that are quoted throughout the series.

I'd have liked to post the art that is shown (Dorian Gray has a marvelous collection), but alas, I'm quite ignorant of art, and I find it far more difficult to find than the rest of the references that I include here.

If I've missed any, please do let me know. I want this list to be as thorough as possible.

I've really enjoyed this show...

[parabare-the-scholar]

08.04.2025—Should I start posting daily about my studies? Would that motivate me more?

To give you some context: I already have a degree, and I'm already working. But I've always said that if I were rich, I would just study degree after degree, so now that I've been working and saving and I'm more settled, I thought it would be a great idea to start.

That was until I realized just how different studying for a humanities degree is from studying for a STEM one. I'm not used to it. It's been a decade since I've had to read so much, and do essays, and write 20 pages worth of projects... It's been hard. Especially since I failed one of my courses and will have to retake that exam in September. And, even if spending the summer reading Shakespeare doesn't really bother me, the fact that I've failed does.

So I want to study more and be a bit more serious about this.

Idk... Wish me luck, because I'm already behind on my schedule lol. Anyway, let's get to it!

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Outlander (1x05)

Absence, hear thou my protestation    Against thy strength,    Distance and length: Do what thou canst for alteration,    For hearts of truest mettle    Absence doth join and Time doth settle.

― John Donne, That Time And Absence Proves Rather Helps Than Hurts To Loves

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Sense and Sensibility (1996)

What though the sea with waves continuall Doe eate the earth, it is no more at all...

Nor is the earth the lesse or loseth aught, For whatsoever from one place doth fall, Is with the tide unto another brought...

For there is nothing lost, but may be found, if sought...

― Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Sense and Sensibility (1996)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

― William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Sense and Sensibility (1996)

Is love a fancy, or a feeling?

No. It is immortal as immaculate Truth,

'Tis not a blossom shed as soon as youth,

Drops from the stem of life—for it will grow,

In barren regions, where no waters flow,

Nor rays of promise cheats the pensive gloom.

― Hartley Coleridge, Sonnet VII

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Sense and Sensibility (1996)

No voice divine the storm allay'd,

         No light propitious shone;

When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,

         We perish'd, each alone:

But I beneath a rougher sea,

And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.

― William Cowper, The Castaway

[parabare-the-scholar]

I have crossed oceans of time to find you.

― Bram Stoker's Dracula (2012)

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: A Discovery of Witches (3x07)

Is he native to this realm? No,

his wide nature grew out of both worlds.

They more adeptly bend the willow's branches

who have experience of the willow's roots.

When you go to bed, don't leave bread or milk

on the table: it attracts the dead—

[...]

Nothing can mar for him the authentic image;

whether he wanders through houses or graves,

let him praise signet ring, gold necklace, jar.

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnet 6

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Penny Dreadful (3x09)

But there's a Tree, of many, one,

A single field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone;

                      The Pansy at my feet

                      Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

― William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Penny Dreadful (3x07)

I have made my bed

In charnels and on coffins, where black death

Keeps record of the trophies won...

― Percy B. Shelley, Alastor

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Penny Dreadful (3x01)

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below,

Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell.

Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe

That seems to draw—but it shall not be so:

Let all be well, be well.

― Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Maud (Part XVIII): I have led her Home, my love, my only friend

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Penny Dreadful (3x01)

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

         I feel it, when I sorrow most;

         'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

― Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Penny Dreadful (2x05)

I am! yet what I am none care or knows.

My friends forsake me like a memory lost.

I am the self-consumer of my woes,

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes.

And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed.

[...]

I long for scenes where man hath never trod.

A place where woman never smiled or wept;

There to abide with my Creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept.

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie.

The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.

― John Clare, I am

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Penny Dreadful (2x03)

By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes.

― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Penny Dreadful (2x02)

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

[parabare-the-scholar]

Seen in: Penny Dreadful (1x08)

O fleeting joyes

Of Paradise, deare bought with lasting woes!

Did I request thee, Maker, from my Clay

To mould me Man

― John Milton, Paradise Lost