HUMOR: Shake It Off, Shakespeare; Shake It Off
Drew continues following Taylor Swift’s career and connections to Shakespeare.
By Drew Gallagher
HUMORIST
Shakespeare has returned!
Well, at least our modern version of the same. My home girl Taylor Swift’s new album dropped on October 3rd, and for a few moments the world could collectively retreat to its bedroom, put on some headphones so Mom wouldn’t yell that you were playing Frankie Goes to Hollywood too loud, and escape the travails of this life until dinner was ready. (Truthfully, I only played Frankie Goes to Hollywood loudly once, so I could tell my mother: “Mom, Frankie Say Relax.” I certainly did not want her listening to the lyrics.)
Taylor Swift, who was born in the same hospital I was, is undeniably our Shakespeare according to the Folger Institute in Washington, D.C., which is embracing the popularity of Swift and the release of her newest masterpiece to bring younger readers to the Bard. In fact, they recently hosted a trivia night where they asked which quote was Shakespeare’s and which was Swift’s.
See how you do. Probably not as well as your teenage daughter (answers below):
“Wild winds are death to the candle.”
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
“He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”
“I died on the altar waiting for the proof.”
“You, with your words like knives and swords and weapons that you use against me.”
The Folger does need to weigh the advocacy of Taylor Swift’s unbridled brilliance with the unbridled idiocy of President Trump who absolutely hates Taylor Swift. If the Folger embraces her too fully, Trump will probably argue that only he is allowed to embrace women too fully because they like it and that Shakespeare had terrible ratings and could not carry Chris Marlow’s jockstrap.
As a parent, I do feel I failed my daughter when I could not score tickets through the Eras tour lottery even though Tay Tay and I grew up in the same town only 20 years apart. Years prior, we were able to take our daughter to see Hamilton at the Kennedy Center, but that now seems to be the generational equivalent of my mother-in-law seeing the Beatles live (which she did in D.C.) versus “South Pacific” on Broadway (which she may or may not have done because why would we ever talk about that when she saw the Beatles live!).
Now some readers might scoff at any equating of the talents of Shakespeare and Swift, mostly because Shakespeare was not engaged to a future NFL Hall of Famer who has a podcast, but if the learned Folger folk believe the comparisons are apt, then it is certainly worthy of my consideration, since I went to preschool a few blocks from where Taylor grew up which nearly makes us BFFs. And it’s a bit unfair to slag on Shakespeare for not marrying a future NFL Hall of Famer since he was born over 300 years before Pudge Heffelfinger was paid $500 to play for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. (Pudge Heffelfinger is the perfect name for the first professional football player. Not so much for the doctor about to perform your prostate exam.)
Young William was certainly no slouch in the marriage department, though, because he married actress Anne Hathaway who played Fantine in the film adaptation of Les Miserables and won an Academy Award for her efforts. Her version of “I Dreamed a Dream” is more haunting than the three witches in Macbeth who still seem to be nothing more than a sight gag to attract the blue color crowd in Elizabethan England. That unpopular stance cost me many an “A” at Mary Washington College.
To further blunt any skepticism about Taylor Swift being equal to the greatest playwright of all time, I reached out to Taylor Swift expert Ava Posey. (Legal Disclaimer: My personal counsel, Jeannie Dahnk, requires that any mention of the Bard and his plays includes the qualifier that we don’t really know if he wrote the plays. Ms. Dahnk does not share similar concerns on my stance regarding the witches in Macbeth being nothing more than a ratings ploy.)
Posey, a sports journalist at Wahoos247, is an expert on Swift by dint of her being the only person I know who has ever met Taylor Swift. Being the gifted writer that she is, Posey once posted on a Taylor Swift fan site many years ago, and, unbeknownst to those posting, their hero was reading the comments. Swift invited a few of them to meet her in Tennessee and listen to some new music and ask questions and generally bask in the sun-like brilliance of her company.
Posey was not at all surprised by my inquiry on Swift compared to Shakespeare.
“I definitely understand why someone might ask that question,” she said. “They’re practically one in the same!”
Sure, Posey never met Shakespeare, but she did meet Taylor Swift, and that probably polls better with the Tik Tok set anyway. And the scholars at the Folger, despite their scholarly best, have never met Shakespeare either and probably did not meet Tay Tay, so these combined expert opinions are our gospel. Shakespeare does indeed walk amongst us again with the release of his newest quarto—“The Life of A Showgirl”. Taylor’s Version.
(PS—the first track on the new album is “The Fate of Ophelia.” Coincidence? I think not.)
Here are the answers to the quiz:
“Wild winds are death to the candle.” --Taylor Swift “The Albatross” (half credit if you swore it was Elton John)
“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”—Shakespeare, The Tempest
“He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
“I died on the altar waiting for the proof.”—Taylor Swift “So Long, London”
“You, with your words like knives and swords and weapons that you use against me.”—Taylor Swift “Mean”
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