Parents of the Taylor Swift generation know the tradition of getting lost in love poems after a break-up (never forget a forlorn Big emailing Carrie iconic love letters from great poets, after leaving her at the altar in Sex and the City: The Movie).
But, fast-forward a few years and the writings of Taylor Swift are now right up there with those of the world’s literary greats.
Taylor Swift looms high in education. Her songs are considered literature by some and university’s now have courses in Swift. And, of course this week as teens across the country have mourned an inability to get Taylor Swift concert tickets, or celebrated their success, she plays an outsized role in our schoolyard culture.
Literary references in Taylor Swift songs
In a recent Sydney Morning Herald article, self-described ‘Shakespeare professor’ Jonathan Bate breaks down Taylor Swift’s clever use of bookish references in one of his favourite songs, Invisible String.
The song is about Taylor’s relationship with (her now ex) Joe Alwyn. She writes “isn’t it just so pretty to think, all along there was some invisible string, tying you to me?” Jonathan points out the two subtle references that lurk within her words.
One nod is to the closing dialogue of Ernest Hemingway’s epic wartime novel, The Sun Also Rises: “Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.” “Yes.” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
The second points to Mr Rochester’s declaration of love for Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: “I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you – especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame.”
The University of Texas Taylor Swift Songbook
In August 2022, the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Liberal Arts announced that English professor Elizabeth Scala would deliver ‘The Taylor Swift Songbook’ to undergrad students in the Liberal Arts Honours program. Preliminary texts for the course include her 2020 lockdown albums Folklore and Evermore, 2019’s Lover and ‘Taylor’s Version’ reissue of Red, with the course teaching literary traditions through the art of songwriting, and, in particular, the contemporary lens of Taylor Swift songs.
Students in the course will study the Taylor Swift songbook, alongside Shakespeare, Keats, and Frost, as an introduction to literary studies and research methods.
As part of the course they’ll be addressing gender, authenticity, how fans impact artists and the work they produce, and, of course, the authorship of a writer’s words.
“I want to show them how Taylor Swift draws on richer literary traditions in her songwriting, topically but also formally, in terms of how she uses references, metaphors, and clever manipulations of words,” says Scala.
She believes that what makes Taylor Swift’s songs such a good canvas for sponge-like young minds is her use of metaphors grounded in literary traditions.
“All of these interesting contexts for literature are alive in her work right now,” Scala states, explaining that the course is also a modern way to “connect the curriculum to the present without ceding the past and keeping older material in but with relevance”.
The future of celebrity university courses
Celebrity university courses have been around since as early as lecturer Kevin Allred’s 2014 ‘Politicising Beyoncé’ course. Not to be left behind, her husband and frequent creative collaborator Jay Z joined the club soon after, with a ‘Jay-Z-Ology’ course at Georgetown University.
Miley Cyrus, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Diddy and Janes Franco all have courses designed around their art and careers, but with so many under her belt, Taylor Swift probably takes the cup here.
Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada runs a program of study surrounding her literary legacy and Stanford University’s ‘All Too Well’ (10-week version) course offers students a deep-dive of the singer-songwriter’s popular song. The 50-minute weekly class, led by Stanford University alum Nona Hungate in the institution’s Burbank Lecture Theater will form part of the school’s ‘Italic 99’ courses (which also includes the intriguing ‘Listening to Music Like Your Life Depended on It’).
New York University has offered a stand-alone Taylor Swift course in the past, exploring the singer as a musical entrepreneur, and the songwriters who inspire her work. It’s described as a course that “deconstructs both sides of the love/hate Taylor Swift camp through lyric readings and analysis of her growth as an artist and a celebrity”.
Then there’s a New York University’s Clive Davis Institute course based on Taylor’s career and cultural impact too, taught by senior Rolling Stones writer Brittany Spanos.
The institute also ran a ‘Topics in Recorded Music: Lana Del Rey’ course, and with Texas State University announcing the now infamous ‘Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet and European Pop Culture’ course, the future of celebrity university courses seems certain.
The trend has yet to hit Australia but with the popular singer/songwriter set to tour here in February 2024 and hundreds of thousands of tickets sold out in a record time of just three and a half hours today, it may not be long before local universities do add Swift-focused study options.
In EducationDaily’s humble opinion, an Australian university degree in the starlet’s iconic song lyrics could be Better Than Revenge for fans who missed out.
