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This article originally appeared at The Conversation, where is an occasional series highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of course:

鈥淭he Taylor Swift Songbook鈥�

What prompted the idea for the course?

This class is part of a group of introductory English offerings that focus on basic methods of literary analysis and research. It fulfills different requirements for potential English majors and the general student population, so I am always looking for news ways to engage them.

For a few years, I taught it as a Harry Potter course. I introduced students to classic British literature by exploring the Romantic and medieval literary traditions present in the novel.

But earlier this year, I realized I was bored. I had been listening to a lot of Taylor Swift with my college-aged daughter, who had been home for a year during the pandemic. Swift had recently released 鈥�.鈥�

Listening to her track 鈥溾�� was my epiphany. 厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 vivid imagery and emotionally gripping detail had all the markings of a great narrative poem. She writes the song in a way that mirrors the recursions of memory. Her verses become increasingly strong and build upon each other once she starts remembering the past. At the same time, the song鈥檚 imagery moves from fall to winter as she reflects upon the relationship鈥檚 beginning and frosty end.

What does the course explore?

This course pairs Taylor Swift songs with a number of poems, along with a play, a novel and a film.

The semester began with the pairing of 厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 songs with Renaissance love poetry. One class analyzing the metaphors, similes and colors in the song 鈥淩ed鈥� turned, a week or so later, into an exploration of Shakespeare鈥檚 use of similar colors in his famous sonnet 73: 鈥�.鈥�

From 鈥淩ed鈥�:

Loving him was blue like I鈥檇 never known

Missing him was dark gray, all alone 鈥�

But loving him was red

Shakespeare, meanwhile, begins his sonnet 73 with 鈥淭hat time of year thou mayst in me behold / When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang,鈥� before pointing to the oranges of autumn鈥檚 鈥渟unset [that] fadeth in the west鈥� and 鈥渢he glowing of such fire / That on the ashes of his youth doth lie.鈥�

Where Swift moves from cool tones to 鈥渂urning red,鈥� Shakespeare moves through increasingly warm tones: from yellow, to orange, to red. But both move toward an intensity of color and heat.

Some couplings are obvious. For instance, 厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 鈥溾�� mentions the title characters of Shakespeare鈥檚 鈥溾�� 鈥� 鈥淩omeo save me, I鈥檝e been feeling so alone.鈥�

Others might come as more of a surprise: I paired Daphne du Maurier鈥檚 1938 novel 鈥�,鈥� which Alfred Hitchcock in 1940, with 厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 song 鈥�.鈥�

Centering on a scandalous woman named Rebecca 鈥� or Rebekah, in 厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 song 鈥� the song, novel and film explore the relations of mad women and madwomen, the tenuous line between anger and craziness. It鈥檚 a theme Swift hits on in a number of songs, from her 2019 track 鈥溾�� to 2020鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� which I paired with Sylvia Plath鈥檚 poem 鈥�.鈥�

Why is this course relevant now?

I think this course tapped into the zeitgeist in ways I couldn鈥檛 have imagined when I first dreamed it up. Of course, 厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 music is popular, and she has long had a devoted following. But the October 2022 release of her album 鈥溾�� has only made the course seem more relevant to students鈥� interests. As a class, we spent time exploring the ways tracks on 鈥淢idnights鈥� revisited themes and writing strategies that appeared in 厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 earlier songs.

What鈥檚 a critical lesson from the course?

Analyzing 厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 writing will hopefully help my students recognize how certain poetic and literary devices operate in older texts 鈥� as much as those same books and poems from the past help them appreciate 厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 art at a deeper level. They seem especially eager to engage with older materials, like Renaissance seduction poetry and black and white film, when they can see traces of the same artistic techniques in the music videos and songs they watch and listen to today.

厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 is attached to an English and American literary past in both obvious and more subtle ways. , Swift deploys forms 鈥� like metaphors, conceits and structures 鈥� that are part of a shared literary heritage that students might otherwise find old-fashioned and irrelevant.

Far from diminishing the value of 厂飞颈蹿迟鈥檚 writing, tracing its connection to the literary greats shores up her authority as a creative artist. Swift, like all artists, is part of a , and she calls upon it to create new works.

What materials does the course feature?

• 鈥�,鈥� Adam Bradley, 2019
• 鈥�,鈥� Alfred Hitchcock, 1940
• 鈥�,鈥� Taylor Swift, 2020

What will the course prepare students to do?

This course has rather modest ambitions. It prepares careful and critical readers, as well as articulate writers and researchers.

It pays attention to what language denotes at the surface and what it carries around with it in its connotations and associations. It teaches students about those features, using the Oxford English Dictionary as a research tool to probe linguistic origin, register and usage beyond what a term literally means.

While delivering New York University鈥檚 2022 commencement speech, to embrace their enthusiasms and be unafraid to explore their interests.

Finding a way to tap into students鈥� enthusiasm for Swift, and tie her songwriting to literary methodologies, is my version of following her lead.

Unusual Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

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