For an album named after Tortured Poets, The Tortured Poets Department does not disappoint in its taking inspiration from the literary. Here are just a few examples of literary references I couldn’t help but notice on Taylor Swift’s new record.
1. “The Tortured Poets Department” and “loml”
“You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith” and “We embroidered the memories of the time I was away / Stitching, ‘We were just kids, babe’”
Allusions to Just Kids by Patti Smith (2010) and Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Dog by Dylan Thomas (1940). Patti Smith is a foundational figure of American punk rock, while Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer.
2. “The Bolter”
“Then she runs like it’s a race / Behind her back, her best mates laughed / And they nicknamed her ‘The Bolter’”
Thematically references Nancy Mitford’s 1945 novel The Pursuit of Love, within which the narrator is also nicknamed “The Bolter” because she often abandoned her life for a more fanciful one.
3. “I Hate It Here”
“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”
Name-drops The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a now classic of English children’s literature published in 1911.
4. “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”
“Oh, here we go again / The voices in his head / Called the rain to end our days of wild”
Draws on Emily Dickinson’s “Wild nights – Wild nights!,” originally published in 1891.
5. “The Manuscript”
“The professor said to write what you know”
References Frederick Bhaer, or “the professor” of Louisa May Alcott’s renowned 1861 novel Little Women; his principal advice to Jo is to “write what she knows.”
6. “The Albatross”
“She’s the albatross / She is here to destroy you.” and “A rose by any other name is a scandal”
The first line alludes to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1834 poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which deems the albatross a symbol of good fortune; if one were to kill an albatross, they would be forced to wear the animal around their neck as a reminder of their unforgivable deed.
The second line serves as a callback to William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597); “What’s in a name?,” asks Juliet, “That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.”
7. “So High School”
“The brink of a wrinkle in time / Bittersweet sixteen suddenly.”
Explicit reference to Madeleine L’Engle’s classic time travel novel, A Wrinkle in Time (1962).
8. “Cassandra”
“So, they killed Cassandra first ‘cause she feared the worst”
Tells the story of Cassandra, a Trojan princess and prophet, as illustrated in Homer’s The Iliad and Virgil’s The Aeneid.
9. “So Long London”
“I saw, in my mind, fairy lights through the mist / I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift”
Imitates the moment Nick’s gaze meets Daisy’s green light across the bay in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925).
10. “Peter”
“You said you were gonna grow up / Then you were gonna come find me”
An homage to the classic childhood story Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie (1911).
References: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/g60569291/tortured-poets-department-taylor-swift-literary-references-explained/