Literary References Taylor Swift Used in The Tortured Poets Department

Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department resonates with the level of intricate literary depth that she’s known for infusing in her music. Across all 31 songs, including the main album and the anthology, bibliophile Swifties have dug up many references to books and poems seamlessly woven into the song lyrics. So, our task at hand is to try and decode all the literary references Taylor Swift has hidden in TTPD.

Taylor has proven that her songwriting prowess extends beyond writing relatable songs and composing catchy hooks, most evidently in her previous albums Folklore and Evermore. She has often turned to classic literature and imageries to express the most complicated emotions with just a few words. In her song The Outside from her self-titled debut album, she wrote “I tried to take the road less Travelled by / But nothing seems to work the first few times, am I right?” which was a subtle nod to Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken. She wrote her song Love Story around the classic Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. You can also find references to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and the Bible in her previous songs.

Swift may have perfected the art of crafting literature-inspired lyrics over the years, but the truth is that she’s been doing it since the very beginning. Beyond her lyrical genius, Swift has also name-dropped quite a few fellow tortured poets and places in TTPD, prompting surprise amongst listeners. While many had thought that TTPD would be another breakup album about her past relationships, Swift instead opted to take a labyrinthine artistic approach.

Taylor has also written full-length songs inspired by novels, as evidenced by Safe & Sound for The Hunger Games as well as Carolina for Where The Crawdads Sing. Her talent for storytelling certainly justifies why universities have dedicated courses to studying and analysing her music and art. Whether or not you want to sign up for such a class about Taylor Swift, you can now explore the literary references she used in her album TTPD, which also gave us a glimpse into her bedside reading choices.

Taylor Swift Made Some Changes to the Eras Tour Setlist in Paris and Swifties Are Down Bad

Lifestyle

Taylor Swift’s Custom Guitar and Piano Collection, as Shown on the Eras Tour

Lifestyle

The literary references we found in Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department or TTPD

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Swift mentioned American singer-songwriter and poet Patti Smith as well as Welsh poet Dylan Smith in the title track of her album The Tortured Poets Department. She sings, “You’re not Dylan Smith, I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, We’re modern idiots”. Dylan Smith and Patti Smith have both spent time at the iconic Chelsea Hotel. Dylan Smith’s works of poetry, which includes poems like Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and Under Milk Wood, are well-known for their profound lyricism and emotional depth.

Patti Smith posted a picture with Dylan Thomas’ memoir, Dylan Thomas: Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Dog, to thank Taylor for mentioning her in the song along the Welsh poet. Taylor acknowledges Smith’s work in another of her songs, loml, singing, “We embroidered the memories of the time I was away / Stitching, ‘We were just kids, babe‘”. Just Kids is the title of Patti Smith’s memoir, and thus, the phrase could have been included as a subtle homage to the poetess.

Shop Here

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

In the song So Long London, Swift sang, “I saw, in my mind, ferry lights through the mist / I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift,” which may refer to the scene in The Great Gatsby where Nick sees the green light across the lake. According to fan theories, the song is her goodbye to her past relationship with Joe Alwyn.

Shop Here

Florida by Lauren Groff

Florence Welsh, who co-wrote the song Florida!!! with Swift wrote on her Instagram, “When Taylor Swift asked me to feature on Florida!!! I immediately thought of one of my favourite short story collections by Lauren Groff. Full of ghosts and swamps and storms.” And after hearing the theatric production and soul-stirring lyrics, we can probably say that this story influenced the songwriting as well.

Groff posted on X, “It has been a week full of amazing things but this shout-out by @florencemachine just shot me into the stratosphere. And the song is a BOP.” She added, “This one goes out to everyone who ever made a face and told me that nobody reads short story collections. Don’t listen! Keep writing short stories!”

Shop Here

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!, Poem by Emily Dickinson

Ancestry has recently revealed that 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson and pop phenomenon Taylor Swift are related. For fans, the news was unexpected, but not astonishing. Swifties also believe that her second quarantine album Evermore was inspired by Dickinson’s poem One Sister Have I in Our House, which includes the word “forevermore”. Moreover, Swift also announced the album on Dickinson’s birthday, December 10 2020, which further added to the speculations.

In the song My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys in TTPD, Taylor Swift sings, “Oh, here we go again / The voices in his head / Called the rain to end our days of wild,” referring to Dickinson’s poem Wild nights – Wild nights!

Shop Here

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? play by Edward Albee

Many Swifties feel that the song Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? or at least its title is based on Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The play shows marriage as an instrument of coNFLict, disagreement, and disappointment. However, Swift’s song is about her life and accomplishments, and thus the main subjects of the two subject materials are undoubtedly different.

Shop Here

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner tells the story of a sailor who shoots an albatross, inflicting a curse on his ship and crew. As part of his penance, the mariner is compelled to wander the seas, repeating his story to anybody who would listen. Taylor Swift drew a literary reference to the scene in her TTPD song The Albatross, singing, “She’s the albatross / She is here to destroy you” comparing herself to the albatross and warning the people who love her.

Shop Here

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Years after the release of Love Story, Taylor Swift once again referenced the classic literature of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare in her song The Albatross of TTPD. In the play, Shakespeare wrote “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” But in the song, Swift wrote, “A rose by any other name is a Scandal“.

Shop Here

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle

Taylor recounts her relationship with footballer boyfriend Travis Kelce in So High School and how it makes her feel like a high school kid. She sings, “The brink of a wrinkle in time / Bittersweet sixteen suddenly” to convey the shift in time she experiences when he is with her. In the line, she referred to Madeline L’Engle’s well-known time-travel novel A Wrinkle in Time. The novel has also been adapted into a Disney film starring Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, and Reese Witherspoon.

Shop Here

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

The song Peter appears to be iNFLuenced by J.M Barrie’s literary work, Peter Pan. Peter is a boy who never grew up and has spent his never-ending childhood as the Lost Boys’ leader in the magical Neverland. Taylor recalls the ‘Lost Boys’ in the song and also sings, “You said you were gonna grow up / Then you were gonna come find me” in the song. She used Peter as a metaphor to describe a love interest (widely believed to be Matty Healy) who behaved in a comparable way. Prior to TTPD, Taylor Swift had previously used literary references to Peter Pan in her album Folklore. In Cardigan, she penned the lyrics, “tried to change the ending / Peter losing Wendy.”

Shop Here

The Bible

Taylor was raised as a Christian, and thus, references to religion often pop up in her lyrics. In the lyrics to the song Guilty as Sin? she sang, “What if I roll the stone away? / They’re gonna crucify me anyway / What if the way you hold me is actually what’s holy?” Making references to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.

That’s not all. In the song The Prophecy, she penned, “I got cursed like Eve got bitten,” making a subtle reference to the tale of Adam and Eve.

Shop Here

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

The Pursuit of Love is a classic piece of British literature set during the interwar period. It chronicles protagonist Linda’s romantic experiences and misfortunes, as well as that of the quirky Radlett family. The book’s narrator, Linda’s cousin Fanny, has a mother who is referred to as The Bolter because she frequently abandons her family and life in search of greater things. In the context of the book, Taylor sings about a girl (or herself) who is running from restraining situations in search of true happiness. So she sings, “Then she runs like it’s a race / Behind her back, her best mates laughed / And they nicknamed her ‘The Bolter’“.

Shop Here

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

In the song I Hate It Here, Taylor belts out, “I hate it here so I will go to secret gardens in my mind / People need a key to get to, the only one is mine / I read about it in a book when I was a precocious child“. Here, she is talking about Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s classic The Secret Garden, which she most likely read as a child.

Shop Here

The Iliad by Homer

Taylor’s song Cassandra is based on the Greek mythology character of the same name. Smitten by her beauty, the god Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy. But when she rejected him, he cursed her, saying no one would ever believe her predictions. During the legendary Trojan War, she predicted the Greek plan for the Trojan horse and attempted to warn everyone, but no one believed her. Cassandra’s story appears in both Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid.

Drawing inspiration from Cassandra’s predicament, Taylor recalled similar situations in her life, from Kim and Kanye branding her as a liar to the entire world, as well as the sale of her masters to Scooter Braun without her knowledge. She tried to relate her experience to her fellow musicians, but many sided with Braun. So she sings, “So, they killed Cassandra first ’cause she feared the worst / And tried to tell the town / So, they filled my cell with snakes, I regret to say / Do you believe me now?“

Shop Here

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

“The professor said to write what you know,” Swift sings on the final track of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, The Manuscript. This sentence is a reference to a phrase in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, where Professor Bhaer suggests that Jo March ‘write what she knows’. In the book, Jo is a sensationalist story writer who uses a male pen name because society does not treat female writers well; she is also ashamed of the type of literature she writes. While writing for the publication, Jo develops an unusual connection with Professor Bhaer, which eventually blossoms into a romantic relationship.

Shop Here

(Main and featured image: Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Images)