Several months ago, I had the honour of being asked to write a blurb quote for The Literary Taylor Swift, a new collection of academic essays out now, published by Bloomsbury Academic and edited by Betsy Winakur Tontiplaphol and Anastasia Klimchynskaya. Before I even read the book, I knew what I was going to say… Continue reading The Literary Taylor Swift
Month: October 2024
What about Wendy? Adaptation, interrogation, and turning on the light
When Swift’s speaker sings in ‘cardigan’ that the object of the song ‘tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy’, she encourages us to go back and take a closer look at a story that may have been a staple of our childhoods. The line is deeply ambiguous, and has always puzzled me. It’s unclear whether he tried to change the (happy) ending, making it so that Peter instead lost Wendy; whether he tried and failed to change the (unhappy) ending of Peter losing Wendy; whether he tried to change the (unhappy) ending, but Peter lost Wendy anyway. Is Peter losing Wendy the result of his actions, or the fate he tried to change? [Click above image to read on.]
Swifterature 