Taylor Swift, The Winter's Tale, and Sylvia Plath

the human longing for confession in The Tortured Poets Department

Hi, I’m Katie, a writer and podcaster and I believe that literature, art, beauty, theology, and wonder are worth our time and attention. This essay is free for you to read, but took time and research to write - consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support the work I do.

I promise not to turn this Substack into a Taylor Swift fan account¹, but you have to bear with me here. Yesterday Taylor Swift released her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department. I have thoughts on it, most of which I’m still mulling over. Mostly I really like it, though I think this album, more than perhaps any previous, requires a deep dive into the lyrics to really be appreciated. And maybe that’s fitting for an album with all sorts of literary allusions and nods to a romantic (if tragic) poetic life. The meaning is in the words, not the music.

Mostly I think this album was released in the wrong season. Here I am spending all morning outside in glorious spring sunshine basking in blooming redbuds and azaleas and Taylor Swift has me wanting to pull out a dark turtleneck and write some moody poems on a grey, rainy day. I mean I’m all for rocking a Victorian vampire slayer look, but this just would not fly in April.

But in any case, the song I keep revisiting is “The Prophecy” which appears in the second half of The Anthology, the surprise double album Swift released at 2am much to fans’ delight. Very on brand for her to secretly have 15 studio-ready songs to go. According to her, she had “written so much tortured poetry in the past two years” she just had to get all out onto the page (and onto much desired collectible vinyl²).

In “The Prophecy” Swift agonizes over the inevitability of a broken heart, a sentiment that immediately made me think of Simeon’s haunting prophecy, which was very much about a broken heart (in this case, a mother who will lose her son):

“the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.” (Luke 2:35)

Swift herself may have been aware of these connections, as she evokes the Fall in the very first stanza:

“And it was written
I got cursed like Eve got bitten
Oh, was it punishment?”

In Swift’s telling, though, Eve has no agency. She didn’t choose to bite the apple, but somehow she was bitten. By Fate? By God? By Satan? It’s unclear. But the tragedy of the song lies in the singer’s own impotence. There is no Free Will here. When she asks “was it punishment?” she evokes Milton’s felix culpa, the ‘fortunate fall,’ an idea more coherent poetically than it is theologically.

The singer’s despair over her situation inspires her to prayer, the only refuge (and agency) she has left in this passive existence. Note the line ‘a lesser woman’ as it quickly shifts to ‘a greater woman.’ Importantly it is faith, and her ability to continue to hope and ask for change, that makes her not ‘a lesser woman.’

“I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope
A greater woman wouldn't beg
But I looked to the sky and said

Please
I've been on my knees
Change the prophecy”

Throughout the song, Swift evokes all sorts of games of chance - “cards on the table” playing out like “fools in a fable,” seeking solace from fortune tellers, “spending my last coin so someone will tell me it'll be okay.” The Prophecy of a broken heart has doomed her to this sort of halfhearted meddling in the occult. She “howls at the moon,” “gathered with a coven 'round a sorceress' table.” But “a greater woman has faith.”

The chorus repeatedly brings Swift back to her knees in prayer, even when her fortune seeking and magic dabbling fails to bring her the answers she seeks. She realizes it is only hope and faith that can offer her any solace, even if the prophecy remains immoveable.

When she sings,

“But even statues crumble if they're made to wait
I'm so afraid I sealed my fate
No sign of soulmates”

This allusion to crumbling statues reminds me of Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, another story of prophecies and oracles. In the play the jealous King Leontes accuses his wife Hermione of having an affair with his friend, Polixenes. The King’s overwhelming jealousy consumes him to the point that he imprisons a very pregnant Hermione and seeks out the Oracle of Delphi to vindicate his suspicions. At Hermione’s trial, a gut wrenching scene that has her staggering onto stage having only just recently given birth, the Oracle vindicates her, "Hermione is chaste," it reports, "Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, his innocent babe truly begotten, and the king shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not found"(III.ii.131-34).

But it is too late for reparations. The King’s young son is reported dead, consumed by grief and worry during his mother’s imprisonment. Hermione falls into a stupor at the news and Leontes interprets all of this to be the act of Apollo, dooming his family for his unjust actions, realized all too late.

Then comes the ‘magic’ portion of the play. Hermione is swept off stage unconscious and we are later told she has died. Leontes spends years and years trying to make amends for his mistakes. At the end of the play, Hermione’s devoted friend Paulina brings Leontes to a statue of his late wife. He is stunned at how lifelike it is. It is then that Paulina (whose ‘Pauline’ name is no mistake) tells Leontes, “It is required / You do awake your faith.”

Music is struck. The statue comes to life. A second chance has been offered.

The scene is ripe for interpretation. There are plenty of clues to suggest that perhaps Paulina had stowed Hermione away, waiting for the moment Leontes was ‘worthy’ to receive her again. But I have always chosen to interpret this scene as pure magic, pure faith. There is plenty in the play that suggests that things are not always what they seem, and that yes, faith can restore ‘what is lost’ and ready ‘to be found.’

You’ll excuse this little aside. The Winter’s Tale may be my favorite Shakespeare play. As a senior in college I played Hermione in the trial scene for my Staging Shakespeare seminar and I still remember the raw beauty and the raw hope that this play offers on a visceral level.

But in any case I think it’s a particularly relevant allusion to keep in mind when listening to Swift’s “The Prophecy,” because it plays so much with the tension between agency and fate, free will and our sometimes necessary passivity. Leontes’ does not initially accept the truth of the Oracle. It is only when his son is stricken down that he realizes the errors of his ways. Likewise in Swift’s account, we are left wondering whether there is anything that can be done for this woman, dangling helplessly between what has been prophesied and what is yet to come. What can she do?

I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope
A greater woman wouldn't beg
But I looked to the sky and said (Please)

Swift ends her song in the tension between hope and outright begging, and I think actually, whether she realizes it or not, this is where true prayer also lies. You cannot lose hope, but you cannot beg. You cannot change the Prophecy, or the Will of God, anymore than Mary could. But you can pray, which involves great hope, and great trust. I find it incredibly moving - her final, almost gentle prod: please. Sometimes it’s the only prayer we can utter.

The Tortured Poets Department is a tug of war between agency and inevitability. It asks many questions about the role of art in the cleansing of our souls and the expunging of our deepest hurts. There are many other songs that could be equally plumbed for allusions (I mean “The Albatross” - Coleridge anyone?), but you get the picture. I think this is a very smart album from a very talented songwriter. I think her conclusions are murky and we aren’t sure whether love is the redemption she so clearly seeks (its disappointed her too much). The real hope she offers is in the act of writing itself. The last track, “The Manuscript,” lays out her hopes clearly:

And at last
She knew what the agony had been for
The only thing that's left is the manuscript

In the music video for Fortnight, she clearly evokes the romantic drama of the tortured poet, a la Sylvia Plath, shock treatments and all. And perhaps she must recognize that the words she puts to the page are so deeply personal that ironically they will inevitably be so misinterpreted or misunderstood that they simply no longer seem like her own. Maybe in true ‘confessional poet’ style she seeks to expunge the story by writing it, even in giving the burden to her listeners. “Take it,” she seems to say, “I don’t want it.”

“Now and then I reread the manuscript
But the story isn't mine anymore”

I always thought the term ‘confessional poet’ was apt and that what poets like Plath and Sexton and Berryman and Lowell all sought was relief, and perhaps, more than that, forgiveness. They couldn’t find that in poetry, not truly. But the soul does desire confession. We cannot deny it.

And in this album Swift swims in a tradition of hoping and longing, seeking refuge and release in the written word. Whether or not she found it, I don’t know. But, like the singer in “The Prophecy,” I pray she does.

1. And if you missed it, highly recommend tuning in to my conversation with Rachel Sherlock all about the collective joy of Taylor Swift (and honestly, especially if you’re not a Swiftie and you’re trying to figure out what all the fuss is about!).

2. “only available at Target!” I had my issues with this review, but I think the cynical critique of pop music and its inevitable entanglements with capitalism (and not art - ironic for an album like this) was fair.