More Thoughts About Taylor Swift and William Shakespeare

No, they're not a celebrity couple. Taylor Swift is a country singer whose current hit "Love Story" alludes to William Shakespeare's play "Romeo & Juliet." In my last post on this song, I talked about what a doormat the Juliet character was, waiting passively to be rescued by Romeo. While it is a cute song, I thought it sent a bad message to girls. This time I want to write about how the song takes the character names out of the play but otherwise misses the point.

In Taylor Swift's "Love Story" (aka the Romeo & Juliet song), the main characters are a strong-willed boy, a starry-eyed girl and Juliet's stern father who wishes to keep them apart. In William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, the romance takes place amidst the backdrop of the deadly feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. It's not just that Juliet's father wants to lay down the law about dating his daughter; rather, Romeo and Juliet's families have devoted their lives to hating each other.

Taylor Swift's ending in which Romeo mans up and asks Juliet's father for her hand, would have been absurd in the context of the play. In the play, Romeo would never have been let in the front door, let alone given permission to marry Juliet (especially since Juliet's dad was trying to marry the 13 year old off to a nobleman).

However, by the same token, you couldn't have a pop song in which the young lovers end up taking their own lives because of their families' feud; it just wouldn't get mainstream airplay. Indeed, a pop song which conveyed the emotional punch of Romeo & Juliet would likely spark protests and outrage, even if you could contain the complexities within a a three minute pop song.

Thus, what you have on the one hand is a sugary sweet pop song in which love prevails (albeit with a darker message about the need for girls to sit around and wait to be rescued) on the one hand and a darkly tragic play in which lots of characters die (albeit with an opportunity for redemption as the two families reconcile while they grieve over the loss of their children). In the end, I would have to say that I don't know whether Swift gets Shakespeare. However, it doesn't really matter because a pop song could never pack the punch of a Shakespearean tragedy. They are just two different things. It would be like complaining that a Bud Lite was not a vintage wine.