Swift as a Shadow

One of the juiciest parallels between Swift’s career and Shakespeare’s lies in the concept of performing a part, especially performing the villain. In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth coaches her husband to hide his deadly intent behind a welcoming facade: “look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”. That potent image, a serpent coiled beneath a pretty bloom, has become idiomatic for deceptive appearances. It also became a reality for Taylor Swift in 2017. Branded a “sna

One thing Shakespeare and Taylor Swift have in common is they have never shied away from the darker emotional terrain of women’s experiences. Ophelia’s mental breakdown in Hamlet , during which she sings folk songs about betrayal and death after losing both her lover and her father, remains one of the most haunting depictions of female despair ever shown on the stage. In Macbeth , Lady Macbeth’s resolve slowly turns into guilt-ridden madness, leading her to sleepwalk and hall

Unrequited love is a timeless theme in Shakespeare’s works that surfaces both in comedies and in tragedies. In Twelfth Night , Viola’s disguise locks her in a love triangle: she silently loves Orsino, even as she sends “Cesario” (herself disguised) to woo Olivia on his behalf. Unable to confess her feelings, Viola poignantly describes a fictional sister who “never told her love” and kept her agony hidden, smiling at the grief while her heart broke quietly. That image, of a wo