What Is This?
Taylor Swift isn't just a pop star—she's a literary songwriter whose discography reads like a college syllabus. Across 11 studio albums, she's woven references to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charlotte Brontë, Daphne du Maurier, William Wordsworth, and William Shakespeare into her music, transforming personal heartbreak and fictional narratives into a literary tapestry.^1
What started as straightforward country storytelling in her early albums evolved into something more sophisticated: by folklore and evermore (2020), Swift was writing from the perspectives of imagined characters, employing third-person narration, and explicitly channeling 19th and early 20th century literary voices.^2 She shifted from "I" to "she," from autobiography to fictional storytelling, from pop confessional to literary fiction set to music.
This isn't just namedrops or Easter eggs—Swift engages with these authors' themes, borrows their narrative techniques, and builds on their explorations of love, loss, reputation, and societal judgment. Understanding her literary influences reveals a deeper layer to her songwriting and explains why English teachers keep using her music in lesson plans.^3
Why Does It Matter?
Cultural bridge-building: Swift introduces millions of young listeners to classic literature. After folklore dropped, searches for Emily Dickinson spiked. When she references The Great Gatsby, teenagers actually read Fitzgerald. She's making canonical literature relevant to Gen Z.^4
Legitimizing pop music as literature: By drawing explicit connections to respected authors, Swift challenges the high-art/low-art divide. Her work argues that pop songs can do what novels do—build complex characters, explore moral ambiguity, and grapple with timeless themes.
Narrative sophistication: Her evolution from straightforward autobiography to multi-perspective storytelling mirrors the development of the novel itself. She's essentially compressed 200 years of literary innovation into a 15-year career.
Feminist reclamation: Many of Swift's literary references engage with women punished by society—Hester Prynne's scarlet letter, Rebecca de Winter's overshadowed nameless narrator, Emily Dickinson's reclusive genius. Swift reframes these narratives through a modern lens.^5
Proof that commercial success and artistic depth aren't opposites: Swift sells out stadiums while writing concept albums that reference Romantic poets. She proves you can be both accessible and intellectually ambitious.
The Literary Influences: Author by Author
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
Swift's most prominent literary crush. She references The Great Gatsby (1925) multiple times across her discography.^6
In "happiness" (evermore), she directly quotes Daisy Buchanan's famous line about hoping her daughter will be "a beautiful fool"—Fitzgerald's commentary on women's limited options in Jazz Age society. Swift also uses Gatsby's green light as a symbol of forgiveness, transforming Fitzgerald's metaphor for unattainable desire into one about letting go.
On reputation (2017), she describes feeling "so Gatsby" for a whole year—capturing Jay Gatsby's performance of wealth and status while hiding inner vulnerability. Swift connects with Fitzgerald's themes of reinvention, the gap between public persona and private reality, and the American obsession with image.^7
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
The evermore album is Swift's love letter to Dickinson. Released on Dickinson's birthday (December 10), the album channels the poet's reclusive creativity, her exploration of death and immortality, and her unconventional punctuation and capitalization.^8
Fans noticed the album's final track references Dickinson's poem "One Sister have I in our house," which ends with "Sue—forevermore." Swift uses "forevermore" in the song, creating a textual echo. The entire folklore/evermore era mirrors Dickinson's practice of writing in isolation—Swift created both albums during COVID-19 lockdown, embracing solitude as creative fuel.^9
In "The Tortured Poets Department" (2024), Swift references Dickinson's "Wild nights" poem, connecting the 19th-century poet's restrained passion with modern relationship turbulence.^10
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
The Scarlet Letter (1850) appears twice in Swift's work. In "Love Story" (2008), she casts herself as the scarlet letter—society's condemned woman—opposite a Romeo figure. Later, in "New Romantics" (2014), she sings about showing off "different scarlet letters," reclaiming the mark of shame as a badge of experience.^11
Swift connects with Hawthorne's exploration of public judgment, female sexuality policed by society, and the gap between private truth and public reputation—themes that run through her entire career, especially the reputation album cycle.^12
In "Maroon" (Midnights, 2022), she uses color symbolism ("so scarlet, it was maroon") that echoes Hawthorne's symbolic use of the scarlet "A"—both writers using color to represent passion that society condemns.
Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989)
Swift confirmed in interviews that reading Rebecca (1938) directly inspired "tolerate it" on evermore. The Gothic novel follows an unnamed young bride overshadowed by her husband's glamorous dead first wife.^13
The song captures the nameless narrator's desperate attempts to earn her husband's affection—laying the table, polishing plates, taking his indifference as love. Swift channels du Maurier's exploration of women seeking validation from emotionally unavailable men and the haunting presence of past relationships.^14
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)
While less explicit than other references, literary scholars note parallels between Swift's storytelling and Jane Eyre (1847). The song "mad woman" (folklore) evokes Bertha Mason, Rochester's "mad" first wife hidden in the attic—exploring how women's anger gets pathologized and dismissed.^15
Swift also engages with Brontë's themes of class difference in romance, the "plain" woman who wins through personality rather than beauty, and female rage as a rational response to injustice.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
In "The Lakes" (folklore), Swift references the Lake District where Wordsworth and other Romantic poets lived. She explicitly puns on his name: "Tell me what are my words worth?"^16
The song channels Romantic ideals—nature as refuge from society, the artist's alienation, the sublime beauty of the English countryside. Like Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," Swift's track contemplates returning to nature for spiritual renewal. She positions herself in the tradition of Romantic poets who rejected urban society for pastoral retreat.^17
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
"Love Story" conflates Romeo and Juliet with a fairy-tale ending—giving the doomed lovers a happy resolution. Swift plays with reader expectations, inverting Shakespeare's tragedy into wish fulfillment. Throughout her career, she references Shakespeare's exploration of feuding families, forbidden love, and the irrationality of passion.^18
In The Tortured Poets Department, she continues engaging with Shakespearean themes of performance, the line between reality and theater, and love as both tragedy and comedy.
Evolution of Her Literary Sophistelling
Early Albums (2006-2012): Simple, direct references. Shakespeare and Hawthorne appear as cultural touchstones. Storytelling is first-person, autobiographical, emotionally immediate.
Mid-Career (2012-2017): More sophisticated engagement. 1989 and reputation use literary allusions to add depth to personal narratives. The Gatsby references signal understanding of characters as constructed personas.
Literary Era (2020-2024): Full transformation. folklore and evermore employ third-person narration, interconnected character arcs (the James-Betty-Augustine love triangle), and explicit channeling of 19th-century literary voices. Swift writes from perspectives of imagined characters, building a fictional universe across album tracks.^19
The Tortured Poets Department makes the meta-textual explicit—the album title itself positions Swift within literary tradition, and the songs examine the act of writing, the artist's relationship to their work, and the transformation of lived experience into art.^20
Narrative Techniques Borrowed from Literature
Multiple perspectives: Like a novel shifting viewpoints, Swift tells the same story from different characters' perspectives across "cardigan," "august," and "betty."^21
Unreliable narrators: Many Swift songs feature narrators whose version of events may not be trustworthy—a literary device perfected by authors like Brontë and du Maurier.
In medias res: Songs often start mid-crisis, trusting listeners to piece together backstory—a technique from epic poetry and modernist literature.
Symbolism and motifs: Swift uses recurring images (colors, seasons, specific locations) the way novels use symbols, building meaning through repetition and variation.
Intertextuality: She references other texts explicitly, inviting listeners to read her work in dialogue with literary tradition—a postmodern technique.
The Current State
Swift's literary approach has influenced a generation of songwriters. Artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Phoebe Bridgers, and Gracie Abrams cite her narrative sophistelling as inspiration. The boundary between "literary fiction" and "pop lyrics" continues to blur.^22
Academic conferences now include panels on Swift's work. Universities offer courses analyzing her songwriting through literary theory. The Library of Congress added her to their recording registry. What was once dismissed as "just pop music" is now studied alongside the authors she references.
Swift herself has leaned into the literary identity. The Tortured Poets Department explicitly positions her as a writer in the tradition of confessional poets and Romantic artists. Her acceptance speeches increasingly reference books and authors. She's claimed her place in literary lineage, not just musical.
Best Resources to Learn More
"The Taylor Swift Songbook" edited by James E. Perone — Academic analysis of her songwriting craft, including literary influences and narrative techniques.
"Passed down like folk songs: An Analysis of Story and Character in Taylor Swift's folklore and evermore" — Scholarly paper examining her narrative structure (available on Academia.edu).^23
Planet Word Museum's "The Swiftie Library" — Interactive exhibit connecting Swift's songs to the books they reference, with reading lists and analysis.^24
"The Literary Guide to Taylor Swift" (Freewrite Store blog) — Accessible overview of her major literary influences with song-by-song breakdown.
Stanford Literature course materials — Several universities now teach Swift in literature courses; syllabi are often available online.
SwiftlySungStories.com — Fan-created database cataloging every literary reference across her discography with annotations and context.