Is it ‘Actually Romantic’ to renounce one’s feminism?
Now that the glitter has settled on The Life of a Showgirl’s release, and I’ve spent enough time on Reddit fan forums and the comments section of Instagram to feel that I’ve gained both a comprehensive overview of audience reactions and a deep, visceral need to go outside and touch some grass, I wanted to share an interesting literary parallel I picked out after a few listens — and no, it has nothing to do with Hamlet. By now, you’ll be able to find lists online detailing all the perceived misogynistic references in Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl. To…
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Bake It Off: the ultimate Taylor Swift baking book
My Taylor Swift inspired cookbook, BAKE IT OFF, comes out on 2 October! (Yes, in perfect time for your listening parties for The Life of A Showgirl!) I am so excited to share this with you all after working so hard on it for months and testing every recipe to perfection. It’s packed with glitter, pastels, and 65 (easy & accessible) baking recipes inspired by Taylor’s lore, lyrics, and luscious imagery. You’ll also find a plethora of wonderful (read: terrible) puns based on Taylor’s lyrics; if you love her wordplay, you’ll love mine too! Pre-order now and await the delights…
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The peak before the prison house: Swift, Wordsworth, and the Romantic child
Taylor Swift opens ‘the lakes’, a bonus track from her 2020 album folklore, with the line ‘is it romantic’, and then goes on to pun about William Wordsworth and allude to the British Romantic poets, who were known for being inspired by the Lake District. However, it’s not actually Swift’s most Romantic song — not by a long stretch. That song is, instead, ‘seven’ — also from folklore. Its opening lines implore the listener to ‘please picture me in the trees/I hit my peak at seven’. It’s awash with nostalgic childhood memories — sweet tea in the summer, braided hair,…
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Swifterature: the book. Coming 4 November
You can find countless articles online – and a few books by now, too – listing all the literary allusions in Taylor Swift’s work, many of which I’ve also documented on this blog. Beyond suggesting that Swift is familiar with some English literary classics, though, these lists don’t really tell us much at all. When I started English Literature (Taylor’s Version) in 2023, I wanted to go deeper: to see these references as the buds on a giant tree, whose roots snake down through the strata of history and culture. My new book, Swifterature, is the result. It will be…
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Taylor Swift: The New Romantic Poet
In this essay by high school student Anthony Daans (who kindly allowed me to give some feedback on his project), he argues for Taylor Swift as a modern Romantic poet, while also exploring some of the ways in which this persona might stand at odds with other aspects of Swift’s career. Thank you so much, Anthony, for allowing me to share this here. In an era where media illiteracy and anti-intellectualism are rising, and contemporary popular music often prioritises commercial interest over poetic depth, Taylor Swift emerges as a modern depiction of a romantic poet. The evocative album folklore, released…
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Creative reflections on English Literature (Taylor’s Version)
As part of their final assignment for English Literature (Taylor’s Version) – my Masters course at Ghent University – students have to prepare a ‘reflection report’. This can take any form, and should be inspired by one or more aspects of the ten-week course. The results are endlessly creative, inspiring, and moving. I’ve shared a selection of this year’s below; enjoy. Artwork inspired by Swift’s lyrics and our seminars Artwork inspired by Swift and Sir John Soane’s museum in London A mini graphic novel inspired by Swift’s ‘mad woman’ and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ A reconstruction of Sir…
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A preview of my new book
I’m so excited to share some content from my new book, Stars Around My Scars: The Annotated Poetry of Taylor Swift, out tomorrow (28 January)! If you haven’t yet ordered a copy, I’m hoping this will convince you to do so! For each of the 46 songs included in the book (you can find my rationale and criteria for choosing songs in the introduction), you’ll find my annotations in purple, pointing out relevant literary techniques where they add to the meaning and significance of the song, as well as noteworthy Easter eggs and cross-references with Swift’s other works. I’ve done…
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On being, and not being, The Man: modern-day vindications of gender rights
As preparation for one of our seminars in English Literature (Taylor’s Version) — in which we look at connections between writing, gender, and power, focusing on Taylor Swift’s ‘The Man’, ‘mad woman’, ‘Dear John’, ‘Hits Different’, and ‘the last great american dynasty’ — I ask students to write a modern-day version of ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’, Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 essay in which she argued for the importance of education for women. Students can argue persuasively for any gender-related issue they wish. I always feel moved — sometimes to laughter, mostly to tears — when reading these, and…
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The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Taylor Swift
Published just in time for Taylor Swift’s 35th birthday, The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Taylor Swift is a collection of thirteen essays that discuss Swift’s self-fashioning, musical storytelling, and importance to pop culture in the 21st century. My own chapter, ‘We won’t be sleeping: insomnia and the feminist antiheroism of Taylor Swift’ , explores sleeping, and not sleeping, in Swift’s lyrics as a form of subtle feminist rebellion. You can find an excerpt below – to read the full chapter (and the full book) for free, head here. “Does Taylor Swift ever sleep? It’s a reasonable question. A few months…
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The Literary Taylor Swift
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 – and I still stand by it, having finished: this book addresses a significant Blank Space in the scholarship on Taylor Swift, and it does so in Style. For anyone wishing to take a deeper dive into the literary aspects of Taylor Swift’s songwriting, I…
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Swifterature 
Dear Professor, Elly,
After reading some of your posts, the link between Swift’s lyrics and some of our great writers, Dickens, Shakespeare, Tennyson,…became clear.
It is also (to quote a scene of ‘Blackadder’)
A ‘cunning plan’ to enthuse and motivate your students making the bridge between our popular superstar Swift and the classic literature, proving some scenes and situations are timeless altough with different literary approaches in different era. It is, indeed, a plan so cunning , you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel…