Description: "Taylor Swift has become a peerless superstar, ceaselessly productive and internationally beloved. From her teen country debut to her world tour as the chair of the tortured poets department, Swift's career and her creations have captivated and bewitched us, opening up new ways to see both her life and our own. In Taylor's Version, the poet and literary scholar Stephanie Burt offers [a] ... critical appreciation of Taylor Swift, her body of work, and the community that her art has fostered. Drawing from her 2024 Harvard course ... as well as from her years as a Swiftie, Burt examines the purposes, talents, and energies Swift brings to her music and to her persona. She highlights the ways Swift's work remains at once intimate and relatable, portraying people we feel that we know and people we wish we could be, from the first loves and girlhoods on Fearless through the public and private angst of Midnights"--
Review Quotes: "Taylor Swift treats her own life as worthy of artistic obsession and grandeur; Stephanie Burt treats her oeuvre as worthy of academic and poetic attention.In Taylor's Version, Burt not only articulates the force of Swift's songwriting genius, but--perhaps more importantly--makes the case for her place in the literary tradition. A provocative, sharp, well-argued book for any Taylor Swift fan--or skeptic."--Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties