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… Continue reading Is it ‘Actually Romantic’ to renounce one’s feminism?
Tag: literature
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… Continue reading The peak before the prison house: Swift, Wordsworth, and the Romantic child
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… Continue reading Swifterature: the book. Coming 4 November
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,… Continue reading Taylor Swift: The New Romantic Poet
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… Continue reading The Literary Taylor Swift
Coming Soon: My First Taylor Swift Book!
Straight from the tortured poets department, I am absolutely ecstatic to announce something out of my Wildest Dreams: my first TAYLOR SWIFT BOOK will be published in January! It's a collection of 46 songs - from Debut to TTPD - with annotated lyrics and accompanying literary analysis, taking a super deep dive into the poetic… Continue reading Coming Soon: My First Taylor Swift Book!
What’s it like to study English Literature (Taylor’s Version)?
For an answer to that question, please enjoy this incredible graphic novel by two of my ridiculously talented students! Thank you Chiara and Anaya. Click above image to read more!
Taylor ‘under the influence’? Initial thoughts on TTPD
In this short video, I share my initial impressions of The Tortured Poets Department - namely, that it is Taylor's most intertextual album yet, peppered with countless allusions to people, places, music, art, poetry - and what this might mean in the wider context of her music and career. Click the image above to watch!
Is Taylor Swift a poet? Yes. Is that the wrong question to ask? Also yes
With less than 24 hours to go before perhaps the biggest release in music history - Taylor Swift's hotly-anticipated eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Department, already downloaded over 200 million times after being leaked the day before the official launch - the requests have started to roll into my inbox from journalists, all asking a variation on the same question: does this mean that Taylor Swift is, like...a poet? An actual...poet? [Click above image to read more]
English Literature (Taylor’s Version): Seminar 9
I had been looking forward to teaching this class for months. In some ways, it's the class that started it all: my concrete idea for English Literature (Taylor's Version) took shape when listening to 'The Great War' for the first time back in 2022, and noticing parallels with Sylvia Plath's poem 'Daddy' (you can read more about that here). It eventually grew into something bigger: a seminar that paired trauma studies with discussion of art as therapy, the connections between literature, love and war, and close reading of Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, John Donne's 'Love's War' and, of course, Plath's 'Daddy'. We also discussed Holocaust literature, the disturbing trend for '...of Auschwitz' titles in modern publishing, and what it means to use art to talk about trauma. It was, perhaps, the most meaningful seminar of all those I've taught, and sparked perhaps the most important conversations. [Click above image to read more]
Swifterature 