What is it about poetry that causes so many to reject it with the firmness of a toddler facing creamed spinach?
“I was speaking to some students in a Montserrat class about poetry and all of them said, ‘I don’t like it’ or ‘I don’t get it,’” says Julie Camarda, visiting assistant professor of English. “My view about poetry is that if you view any literary text as having some sort of magic key with which you can unlock it — that suddenly then it will reveal all of its mysteries — it is not a particularly good text.”
Camarda followed up by asking the class for a show of Taylor Swift fans. In Swift’s lyrics, for example, Camarda was hearing echoes of 19th-century British poets such as the Romantic Movement’s Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, who prized nature and emotion and placed a premium on the power of imagination.
Many in the room were Swifties. “What do you like about Swift?” Camarda asked.
Her lyrics, the students said.
“There was this mental disconnect between lyric and lyrics,” Camarda said. “I thought, ‘Well, this is an interesting opportunity.’”
And so it came to be that among the course catalog's fall offerings appeared The Tortured Poets Department, Camarda’s English course that examines the lyrics of some of the world’s biggest songwriter pop stars paired with 18th- and 19th-century lyric poetry.
This isn't a course about Taylor Swift
Exclusively, that is.
“This is about why Taylor Swift would be interested in putting herself not just in line with other poets but, in particular, with 18th- and 19th-century male British poets,” Camarda notes. “I was curious as to how I could do something with that in an upper-division course that examined theories of lyric, as well as how we decide what’s in the canon, what’s good and what’s not good. How do we develop concepts of taste?”
The course is divided into units: “What is Lyric?”, “What’s Good?: A History of Taste,” “Nature Lyrics,” “Romantic Love Lyrics,” “Other Struggles” (death, mourning, spiritual struggle, exile and psychological disturbance), and “Lyric as Social Protest.” Within each unit is the literary equivalent of the musical mashup: pairings of contemporary lyrics with classic poetry. Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover” and "My Last Duchess" are paired with Joe Jackson’s “Be My Number Two” and The Killers' “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine.” Wordsworth’s “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal” is examined alongside James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” and U2’s “Bad.”
This is a course composed of little mysteries, literary Easter eggs, and not so much who- but whydunits.
Why does Swift identify with the albatross in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”? Why might the writing of Lewis Carroll inspire John Lennon and Paul McCartney to write “I Am the Walrus”?
What in Swift’s “The Lakes” recalls William Wordsworth and the Lake District? What does Swift’s latest album title have in common with the Romantic poets, especially those whose lives ended prematurely and tragically such as John Keats’? What are Wordsworth and Peter Gabriel saying about memory in “Tintern Abbey” and “Solsbury Hill?”
Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” is also on the syllabus. Bad taste is also considered in Camarda’s classroom.
Two-thirds of Camarda’s class call themselves Swifties, though. And, Swift’s music and lyrics do get top billing in Camarda’s class and elsewhere. Swift is increasingly being studied, critiqued and taught in college and university classrooms, and not just for her lyrics. Harvard University offers an English course called "Taylor Swift and Her World." A 2024 CBS News story listed a dozen other colleges and universities across the country offering courses about or inspired by Swift. Some are English courses, but others are offered by business, political science and gender studies departments.
Giulia Giannetta ’25 says reading Swift as a critic allows her to grow as a scholar.
“Studying Swift’s work from a literary perspective has encouraged me to move beyond a fan’s admiration and embrace the critical analysis that reveals new insights into her themes, choices and creative process,” Giannetta explains. “This shift has strengthened not only my admiration for Swift’s craft, but also my confidence in interpreting other works of music and poetry.”
Camarda says she is happy to capitalize on Swift’s popularity to introduce students to critical reading and writing, as well as canonical texts.
“I ask them to think about Swift in a way that’s not parasocial,” Camarda says. In other words, she asks the fans in the room to set aside that imagined idea of connection they may have with a celebrity or star. They’re also asked to dismiss the idea that song lyrics are exclusively autobiographical. And they're expected to engage with seminal critical thinkers. Students' study of lyric poetry and music lyrics is complemented by their reading of contemporary scholars, such as Edward Hirsch and Stephanie Burt, as well as classic theorists Edmund Burke, David Hume and Alastair Fowler.
Incidentally, on Nov. 12, 2024, best-selling “Rolling Stone” journalist Rob Sheffield's new book “Heartbreak is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music”, hit bookstores. Like the students in Camarda's class, Sheffield examines the pop star’s lyrics from a critical perspective.
'Byronmania was a real thing'
Camarda also asks students to consider concepts of celebrity and taste in the 18th- and 19th centuries.
Who, for instance, of the 19th-century Romantics might relate to Swift’s superstardom — or maybe John Mayer’s? George Gordon, Lord Byron, Camarda say: “Byronmania was a real thing. Byron would step into a room knowing people knew about him.”
Inviting such comparisons allows students to examine their tastes and contemporary artists’ work as existing in and part of a continuum, Camarda says.
By the end of the semester, students are fortified with a theoretical foundation on what makes for good lyrics and encouraged to suggest songs and poems for critical scrutiny. In addition to the usual assessment tools, essay, midterm and culminating paper, students submit a syllabus project: a multimedia presentation on texts they’d recommend Camarda add to the syllabus.
Self-avowed Swiftie Caroline Kramer ’26 says the pairing of poetic traditions with contemporary music drew her to the class. Studying Swift was a bonus.
“We’ve covered a wide range of musical artists from The Smiths to Eminem," she said. "And when we do incorporate Taylor Swift, I can’t deny that there’s just something so fun about being assigned a poem by Wordsworth and then listening to Taylor Swift sing, ‘Tell me what are my words worth’ or learning about Lord Byron’s Byronic hero while listening to Swift’s ‘Anti-hero.’ So many implicit references to poets slip by us as music listeners and we don’t always think to acknowledge their influence. Song lyrics are a form of poetry in and of themselves.”
