| Inner Conflicts in Poetry from William Shakespeare to Taylor Swift |
| DozentIn:Emily Larkin, M.A. |
| Veranstaltungstyp:Seminar (Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen) |
| Ort:22/106 |
| Semester:WiSe 2024/25 |
Zeiten:Do. 08:00 - 10:00 (wöchentlich)
Erster Termin:Donnerstag, 07.11.2024 08:00 - 10:00, Ort: 22/106 |
Beschreibung:“All is fair in love and poetry” - with this twist on the infamous John Lyly quote, Taylor Swift announced her latest album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’. Prompted by the title and allusion to Lyly, the internet jumped to wonder who, in a fantasy football world of poetry, would be part of such a department. As this is not the first instance in which the songwriter incorporated or paid homage to other famous lyricists and writers - the choice of whom to offer a chair for tortured poetry, thus, is not necessarily a simple one.
William Shakespeare, arguable the most famous writer of all times, influenced the English language like no other. Critics have acclaimed some of Swift's albums as linguistic and poetic masterworks likewise. Swift's commercial success started with an alternative lyrical version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, after all. Buzzfeed quizzes asking “is this a quote by Swift or by Shakespeare?” also imply a similarity in style and language between the two. But the connection between the songwriter and the barde goes far beyond borrowed fragments of verses and levels of popularity.
Shakespeare wrote for the masses. His sonnets, especially, explore sentiments of true love, sometimes unrequited, heart wrenching, sometimes fulfilled. His contemporaries were likewise interested in the conflicting nature of love with all its versatile manifestations. Being hurt by love is an ever recurring theme in the most popular writings no matter their date of publication.
One could argue that all of these writers were, in fact, tortured poets.
Part of Swift’s ever growing popularity are her lyrics capturing fictional as well as personal experiences of those exact facets of love, grief and sadness Shakespeare and co have immortalised in ink. Often, poems and lyrics on love exceed a rose tinted, joyful or naive sentiment and rather display conflicts between prospective lovers or within oneself.
In this class, we will explore the many manifestations of inner conflicts in (lyric) poetry of the 16th century up until today. In order to do so, we will focus on writings, poems and songs by William Shakespeare, John Donne, Edgar Allan Poe, Christina Rossetti, Oscar Wilde, the Bronte sisters and, lastly, Taylor Swift. In doing so, we will dive into the genre of poetry and lyric, examine both style and rhetoric and, additionally, seek to uncover the causes of the conflicts described. |
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