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Does Taylor Swift鈥檚 music belong in the English classroom? No, obviously. We should teach the classics, like聽. After all, they have stood the test of time. It鈥檚 2024 and he was born in 1564, and she鈥檚 only 34. What鈥檚 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鈥檚 ridiculous. It makes everyone look bad.

I鈥檝e heard all that. And plenty more like it. But none of it is right. Well, the dates might be, but not the assumptions 鈥� 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聽聽album, she sings:

On the way home
I wrote a poem
You say 鈥淲hat a mind鈥�
This happens all the time.

I鈥檓 sure it does. Swift is relentlessly productive as a songwriter. With Midnights, she picked up聽. And here we are, on the brink of another studio album,聽, somehow written and produced amid the gargantuan success of Midnights and the Eras World Tour.

Regardless of what The Tortured Poets Department ends up being about, Swift is already a firm ally of literature and reading. She is聽聽to public libraries in the United States, an advocate to schoolchildren of the importance of reading and songwriting, and a lover of the process of crafting lyrics.

In a聽, Swift declared with glee that, if she were a teacher, she would teach English. The literary references in her songs are endlessly noted. 鈥淚 love Shakespeare as much as the next girl,鈥� she wrote in a聽.

Her interview Read Every Day gives a good sense of this. Swift speaks about her writing process in ways that make it accessible. She explains how songs come to her anywhere and everywhere, like an idea randomly appearing 鈥渙n a cloud鈥� that becomes the first piece in a 鈥減uzzle鈥� that will be assembled into a song. She furtively whisper-sings song ideas into her phone when out with friends.

In her聽聽in 2022, Swift explained how she writes in three broad styles, imagining she is holding either a 鈥渜uill鈥�, a 鈥渇ountain pen鈥�, or a 鈥済litter gel pen鈥�. Songcraft is a joyous challenge for her.

If, as teachers of literature, we are too proud to credit Swift鈥檚 plainly expressed love of English (regardless of whether we like her songs or not), we are likely missing something. To bluntly rule her out of the English classroom feels more absurd than allowing her in.

Clio Doyle, a lecturer in early modern literature, has聽聽Swift鈥檚 suitability for English in a recent article which concludes:

The important thing isn鈥檛 whether or not Swift might be the new Shakespeare. It鈥檚 that the discipline of English literature is flexible, capacious and open-minded. A class on reading Swift鈥檚 work as literature is just another English class, because every English class requires grappling with the idea of reading anything as literature. Even Shakespeare.

Doyle reminds us Swift鈥檚 work has been taught at universities for a while now and, inevitably, the singer鈥檚 name keeps cropping up in relation to Shakespeare. This isn鈥檛 just a case of fandom gone wild or Shakespeare professors, like聽, gone rogue.

The global interest in the world-first academic聽聽is a good measure of how things are trending. Moreover, it is wrong to think Swift鈥檚 songs are included in units of study purely to be adored. Her wide appeal is part of her appeal to educators, but that doesn鈥檛 mean her art is uncritically included.

The reverse is true. Claire Hansen聽聽last year precisely because this influential singer-songwriter prompts students to explore the boundaries of the canon.

I will be teaching Midnights and Shakespeare鈥檚 Sonnets together in a literature unit at the University of Sydney this semester. Why? Not because I think Swift is as good as Shakespeare, or because I think she is not as good as Shakespeare. These statements are fine as personal opinions, but unhelpful as blanket declarations without context. The nature of English as a discipline is far more complex, interesting and valuable than a labelling and ranking exercise.

I teach Shakespeare鈥檚 sonnets as exquisite poems, reflective of their time and culture. I also teach three modern artworks that shed contemporary light on the sonnets.

The first is Jen Bervin鈥檚 2004 book聽. Bervin prints a selection of the sonnets, one per page, in grey text. In each of these grey sonnets, some of Shakespeare鈥檚 words and phrases are printed in black and thus stand out boldly.

The result is a聽. The Shakespearean sonnet appears lying, like fertile soil, beneath the briefer poem that emerges from it. Bervin describes this technique as a stripping down of the sonnets to 鈥渘ets鈥� in order 鈥渢o make the space of the poems open, porous, possible 鈥� a divergent elsewhere鈥�. The creative relationship between the Shakespearean base and Bervin鈥檚 proverb-like poems proves that, as Bervin says, 鈥渨hen we write poems, the history of poetry is with us鈥�.

The second text is Luke Kennard鈥檚 prizewinning 2021 collection聽. Kennard recasts the sonnets as a series of entertaining prose poems. Each poem responds to a specific Shakespearean sonnet, recasting it as the freewheeling thought bubble of a fictional attendee at an unappealing house party. In an interview with C.D. Rose, Kennard聽聽how his house party design puts the reader

in between a public and private space, you鈥檙e at home and you鈥檙e out, you鈥檙e free, you鈥檙e enclosed. And that鈥檚 similar in the sonnets.

The third text is Swift鈥檚 Midnights. Unlike Bervin鈥檚 and Kennard鈥檚 collections, in which individual pieces relate to specific sonnets, there is no explicit adaptation. Instead, Midnights raises broader themes.

In her Elle article, Swift describes songwriting as akin to photography. She strives to capture moments of lived experience:

The fun challenge of writing a pop song is squeezing those evocative details into the catchiest melody you can possibly think of. I thrive on the challenge of sprinkling personal mementos and shreds of reality into a genre of music that is universally known for being, well, universal.

Her point is that the pop songs that 鈥渃ut through the most are actually the most detailed鈥� in their snippets of reality and biography. She says 鈥減eople are reaching out for connection and comfort鈥� and 鈥渕usic lovers want some biographical glimpse into the world of our narrator, a hole in the emotional walls people put up around themselves to survive鈥�.

Midnights exemplifies this. It is a concept album built on the idea that midnight is a time for pursuit of and confrontation with the self 鈥� or better, the selves. Swift says the songs form 鈥渢he full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour鈥�.

The album, she says, is 鈥渁 journey through terrors and sweet dreams鈥� for those 鈥渨ho have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching 鈥� hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve [鈥�] we鈥檒l meet ourselves鈥�.

Swift claims that Midnights lets listeners in through her protective walls to enable deep connection:

I really don鈥檛 think I鈥檝e delved this far into my insecurities in this detail before. I struggle with the idea that my life has become unmanageably sized and [鈥�] I just struggle with the idea of not feeling like a person.

Midnights is not a sonnet collection, but it has fascinating parallels. There is no firm narrative through-line. Nor is there a through-line in early modern sonnet collections such as Shakespeare鈥檚. Instead, both gather songs and poems that let us see aspects of the singing or speaking persona鈥檚 thoughts, emotions and experiences. Shakespeare鈥檚 speaker is also troubled through the night in sonnets 27, 43 and 61.

The sonnets come in thematic clusters, pairs and mini-sequences. It can be interesting to ask students if they can see something similar in the order of songs on the Midnights album 鈥� or the 鈥�3am鈥� edition with its seven extra tracks, or the 鈥淭il Dawn鈥� edition with another three songs.

Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells, in their edition of聽, say Shakespeare鈥檚 collection is 鈥渢he most idiosyncratic gathering of sonnets in the period鈥� because he 鈥渦ses the sonnet form to work out his intimate thoughts and feelings鈥�.

This connects very well with the agenda of Midnights. Both collections are piecemeal psychic landscapes. The singing or speaking voice sometimes feels autobiographical 鈥� compare, for example, sonnets 23, 129, 135-6 and 145 to Swift鈥檚 songs Anti-hero, You鈥檙e On Your Own, Kid, Sweet Nothing, and Would鈥檝e, Could鈥檝e, Should鈥檝e. At other times the voices feel less autobiographical. Often there is no way to distinguish one from the other.

Swift鈥檚 songs and Shakespeare鈥檚 Sonnets are meditations on deeply personal aspects of their narrators鈥� experiences. They present us with encounters, memories, relationships, values and claims. Swift鈥檚 persona is that of a self-reflective singer, just as Shakespeare鈥檚 is that of a self-reflective sonneteer. Both focus on love in all its shades. Both present themselves as vulnerable to industry rivals and pressures. Both dwell on issues of power.

Shakespeare鈥檚 sonnets are rewarding texts for close reading because of their poetic intricacy. Students can look at end rhymes and internal rhymes, the way the argument progresses through聽, the positioning of the 鈥渢urn鈥�, which is often in line 9 or 13, and the way the final couplet wraps things up (or doesn鈥檛).

The songs on Midnights are also rewarding because Swift has a great vocabulary, a love of metaphor, terrific turns of phrase, and a strong sense of symmetry and balance in wording. More complex songs like Maroon and Question鈥�? are great for detailed analysis.

Karma and Mastermind are simpler, yet contain plenty of metaphoric language to be unpacked for meaning and aesthetic effectiveness. Shakespeare鈥檚 controlled use of metaphor in Sonnet 73 makes for a telling contrast.

The Great War, Glitch and Snow on the Beach are good for exploring how well a single extended metaphor can function to carry the meaning of a song. Sonnets 8, 18, 143 and 147 can be explored in similar terms.

Just as students can analyse the 鈥渢urn鈥� or concluding couplet in a Shakespearean sonnet to see how it reshapes the poem, they can do the same with songs on Midnights. Swift is known for writing effective bridges that contribute fresh, important content towards the end of a song: Sweet Nothing, Mastermind and Dear Reader are excellent examples.

Such unexpected pairings are valuable because they require close attention and careful articulation of what is similar and what is not. Shakespeare鈥檚 Sonnet 129, for example (the famous one on lust), and Swift鈥檚 Bigger than the Whole Sky (a powerful expression of loss) make for a gripping comparison of how intense feeling can be expressed poetically.

Or consider Sonnet 29 (鈥淲hen in disgrace with fortune and men鈥檚 eyes鈥�) and Sweet Nothing: both celebrate intimacy as a defence against the pressures of the public world. How about High Infidelity and Sonnet 138 (where love and self-deception coexist), considered in terms of truth in relationships?

There is nothing to lose and plenty to gain in teaching Swift鈥檚 Midnights and Shakespeare鈥檚 Sonnets together. There鈥檚 no dumbing-down involved. And there鈥檚 no need for reductive assertions about who is 鈥渂etter鈥�.

Professor Liam Semler is a Shakespeare scholar in the Discipline of English. He teaches a unit called 'Shakespeare聽and聽Modernity' which includes a seminar on the sonnets聽and聽Midnights along with some modern literary versions of the sonnets. This story was first published in .听

Top Image: Taylor Swift performing at the Tokyo Dome, February 7, 2024.听Toru Hanai/AAP Photos