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https://theconversation.com/should-taylor-swift-be-taught-alongside-shakespeare-a-professor-of-literature-says-yes-223312>
"Does Taylor Swift’s music belong in the English classroom? No, obviously. We
should teach the classics, like Shakespeare’s Sonnets. After all, they have
stood the test of time. It’s 2024 and he was born in 1564, and she’s only 34.
What’s more, she is a pop singer, not a poet. Sliding her into the classroom
would be yet another example of a dumbed-down curriculum. It’s ridiculous. It
makes everyone look bad.
I’ve heard all that. And plenty more like it. But none of it is right. Well,
the dates might be, but not the assumptions – about Shakespeare, about English,
about teaching, and about Swift.
Swift is, by the way, a poet. She sees herself this way and her songs bear her
out. In
Sweet Nothing, on the
Midnights album, she sings:
On the way home
I wrote a poem
You say “What a mind”
This happens all the time.
I’m sure it does. Swift is relentlessly productive as a songwriter. With
Midnights, she picked up her fourth Grammy for Album of the Year. And here we
are, on the brink of another studio album,
The Tortured Poets Department,
somehow written and produced amid the gargantuan success of
Midnights and the
Eras World Tour."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
