The Ultimate Guide to Taylor Swift’s Literary References
Taylor Swift is a prolific writer, but – as most great writer are – she’s also a prolific reader. As her career has grown and matured, so have the literary references hidden in her lyrics.
I’m a former English teacher who studies Taylor Swift lyrics, and I’ve compiled this list of every single one of her literary references.
From debut all the way through TTPD, here’s every book, poem, play, myth, folktale, and author that Taylor has ever mentioned in her albums.
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Every Taylor Swift Literary Reference, Album by Album
Sometimes Taylor explicitly mentions a poem or book, and sometimes the reference is a little more subtle. Then, there are the parallels that exist thematically, symbolically, or with imagery.
So how did I choose this list? I just compiled them all, explaining each one.
Ready? Here we go, album by album and song by song. You’ll notice that for each album, the list gets longer and longer as Taylor’s lyricism grows more intricate and layered.
At the end of this post, there’s a PDF version with the titles only you can save or print for your reference.
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Taylor Swift, Fearless TV, & Speak Now TV
The Outside (Debut)
“I tried to take the road less traveled by” references the classic Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken.
Love Story (Fearless)
“You were Romeo” and “my daddy said stay away from Juliet” references Shakespeare’s classic tragedy Romeo & Juliet.
“I was a scarlet letter” references Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Taylor will reference this classic work again and again in her songbook. The scarlet letter in the novel is a badge of shame, forever marking the wearer as a “ruined woman.”
Superman (Speak Now)
References the classic comic book (then film) series, portraying her lover as “tall, dark, and Superman,” who flies around saving the world while she stays “on the ground” and waits for him.
Red TV & 1989 TV
In the original prologue for Red, Taylor says: “There’s an old poem by Neruda that I’ve always been captivated by, and one of the lines in it has stuck with me ever since the first time I read it. It says ‘love is so short, forgetting is so long’.” She’s referencing Pablo Neruda’s Tonight I Can Write.
All Too Well [10-minute Version] (Red TV)
“They say all’s well that ends well, but I’m in a new hell” references Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well.
State of Grace (Red)
“This is a state of grace”, meaning to be free from sin, has origins in The Bible.
Holy Ground (Red)
“Right there where we stood was holy ground,” meaning a sacred place, has origins in The Bible.
“You’re my Achilles heel” references Greek mythology, in which Achilles has a singular weakness.
New Romantics (1989)
“We show off our different scarlet letters, trust me, mine is better” references The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Taylor frequently references this classic work of literature thematically, and with her imagery.
Wonderland (1989)
“Fell down a rabbit hole,” “flash your green eyes at me,” “curious minds,” “we found Wonderland,” et al, references Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Taylor references this work in several albums.
reputation
“It was the best of times, the worst of crimes,” references the classic opening line of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
“He can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor…I’m so very tame now” references Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (who had a turbulent relationship) famously starred together in a film adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew.
The phrase “so it goes” originates in Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The protagonist’s fatalistic attitude toward trauma is reflected in his frequently-uttered dialogue.
“My castle crumbled overnight” could allude to Monologue at 3am by Sylvia Plath, in which Plath is “wrenched from my one kingdom”. Taylor frequently uses the metaphor of her career as her “kingdom”. She’ll circle back to Plath again and again in her songbook.
This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
“Feelin’ so Gatsby that whole year” references The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in which the characters live it up in roaring 20’s style.
Lover
“It’s a cruel summer” could reference the famous opening line of TS Eliot’s The Wasteland: “April is the cruelest month”.
“I snuck in through the garden gate every night that summer just to seal my fate” could reference The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a novel that seems to be a favorite of Taylor’s.
“All’s well that ends well to end up with you” again references Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, which Taylor also references in All Too Well.
Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince
“Boys will be boys then, where are the wise men?” references the biblical magi.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put me together again,” references the classic children’s nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty.
folklore
“Peter losin’ Wendy” references Peter Pan by JM Barrie, a frequently cited work in Taylor’s songbook.
“A friend to all is a friend to none” is a quote attributed to Aristotle, who Taylor also mentions in So High School.
“My kingdom come undone” references The Lord’s Prayer from the bible: “your kingdom come”.
“Take the road less traveled by” once again references The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.
“Isn’t it just so pretty to think” references the last lines of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway: “isn’t it pretty to think so?”
The Invisible String is also a popular children’s book, by Patrice Karst.
“Time, curious time, gave me no compasses, gave me no signs” likely references Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The most famous line in the book is “curiouser and curiouser.”
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë popularized the “madwoman in the attic” trope with the character Bertha Mason.
“Does the scorpion sting when fighting back?” references The Scorpion & The Frog fable.
The popular quote “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” originates from The Mourning Bride, by. William Congreve. Taylor says, “There’s nothin like a mad woman”, essentially saying the same thing.
“You made her like that” thematically references Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, in which Dr Frankenstein creates a monster, then loathes and fears his creation.
“The masquerade revelers / Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten” may have been inspired by Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus: “for the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge”. Both the song and the poem have a similar message: my pain is not your entertainment.
“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace” thematically references “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” by Dylan Thomas, whom Taylor name-checks in TTPD.
“Love you to the moon and to saturn” alludes to the popular children’s book, Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney.
“Pack your dolls and a sweater, We’ll move to India forever” could once again reference The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, in which the child protagonist is left stranded in British India, dreaming of a better life.
“Roarin’ twenties, tossin’ pennies in the pool” likely references The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which Taylor also referenced in This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (“It was so nice throwin’ big parties / Jump into the pool from the balcony / Everyone swimmin’ in a champagne sea…Feelin’ so Gatsby for that whole year”).
“Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die” references the lake poets, a group of romantic poets who famously lived in The Lake District of England to escape the madness of life in the city.
The awkward phrasing of “I’ve come too far to watch some name-dropping sleaze tell me what are my words worth” has a purpose: it’s arranged to name-check William Wordsworth, the most well-known of the lake poets.
“A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground” likely references A Red Rose by Langston Hughes.
evermore
“Your Midas touch on the Chevy door” references King Midas of Greek Mythology, who could turn anything he touched into gold.
closure
The letters mentioned in closure – “yes I got your letter, yes I’m doing better” – could also reference the letters from Jane Eyre.
“Writing letters addressed to the fire” could reference Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. In the novel that Taylor has referenced before, Jane writes letters to her beloved’s estate, unaware that her lover’s wife has burned down his house. The letters are, therefore, “addressed to the fire.”
“I hope she’ll be a beautiful fool, who takes my spot next to you”, and “the green light of forgiveness” reference The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The green light represents yearning in the novel, and Daisy is described as a “beautiful little fool”.
“Honey, when I’m above the trees” from could similarly reference the classic novel, in which the protagonist says, “Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees — he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.”
“Where the spirit meets the bones” references Compassion by Miller Williams: “You do not know what wars are going on / down there where the spirit meets the bone.”
“‘Cause I fell from the pedestal, right down the rabbit hole” once again references Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.
“The war of words I shouted in my sleep” is a play on the classic War of the Worlds by HG Wells.
“Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?” parallels the storylines of the classic fairy tales Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.
“The road not taken looks real good now” once again references The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, a favorite poem of Taylor’s to cite.
Taylor revealed that she was inspired to write tolerate it after reading Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier. The classic novel is about a wife haunted by the spectre of her husband’s first wife.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Ophelia dies at the willow tree, which could be what Taylor references in willow. “I’m like the water when your ship rolled in that night” could also reference Hamlet’s return in the Shakespearean tragedy, only to find his lover is dead.
In folklore, the Will-o-the-Wisp are ghost or fairy lights meant to lead in a certain direction, which could also be what Taylor references in willow (especially given the visuals of this song on The Eras Tour).
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Midnights
In the music video, Taylor likely refers to Ernest Hemingway, who famously left his entire fortune to his cats. The archetype of the antihero is explored thoroughly in several writer’s guides about the hero’s journey which I explain here.
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë: The novel contains the infamous last line: “Dear reader, I married him”, breaking the fourth wall.
The title is a play on the novel High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (later made into a film and tv show), in which the protagonist visits a series of past lovers to figure out what went wrong.
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle: “A wrinkle in time like the crease by your eyes”.
“So scarlet, it was maroon” calls back to a frequent Taylor reference: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter,
“The rubies that I gave up” alludes to Dorothy’s ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz.
“My town was a wasteland” refers to TS Eliot’s epic poem The Wasteland, which Taylor also referred to in Cruel Summer.
The song could allude to English poet James Fenton’s poem Paris, in which he writes about drinking and romance in the same escapist manner.
“Don’t talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There’s that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling
And I’m in Paris with you.”
“We can plant a memory garden / Say a solemn prayer, place a poppy in my hair” refers to the symbolism of the poppy for remembrance in the UK. The symbolism stems from the poem In Flanders Field, by John McCrae, a soldier who survived the “great war” (WWI).
“If you tasted poison you could have spit me out at the first chance” could allude to the fairytale of Snow White, in which the queen tries to kill Snow White with a poisoned apple.
“I looked around in a blood-soaked gown” refers to Carrie by Stephen King, in which the protagonist is soaked in pig’s blood at a high school dance.
“I see the great escape, so long Daisy May” refers to the archetype of a young, naive girl as symbolized by Daisy Mae of the Lil Abner comic series.
TTPD
“‘Stay away from her’ / The saboteurs / Protested too much” once again references Hamlet, the famous line of which reads: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”. This means that if one makes too big a deal out of denying something, they probably have ulterior motives, or are lying.
Refers to Cassandra of Greek Mythology, a prophet who was destined never to be believed.
“When the first stone’s thrown, there’s screamin’” alludes to John 8:7: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus
Taylor likely drew inspiration from “Maggie and Millie and Molly and May” by EE Cummings.
“Turned into good neighbors” alludes to Robert Frost’s The Mending Wall.
“Years of labor, locks, and ceilings” recalls the story of Cinderella, which Taylor also parallels in the Bejeweled music video.
“One slip and fallin’ back into the hedge maze” likely refers to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice must navigate a literal and metaphorical maze to find her way back home.
“What if I roll the stone away? They’re gonna crucify me anyway” refers to the story of Jesus’ resurrection in The Bible.
Thematically refers to Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus, in which the “peanut-crunching crowds” file in to view the author’s pain as entertainment.
I Can Do it With a Broken Heart
Thematically references Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus, in which the writer’s pain is used as entertainment.
References The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a classic children’s book in which the secret garden symbolizes escape from trauma, finding solace, and the protagonist’s rebirth.
This song seems to be written from Peter Pan’s perspective, while Peter seems to be from Wendy’s perspective. The original story of Peter Pan and Wendy Darling is from the JM Barrie play (then made into various films).
“The coward claimed he was a lion” references the cowardly lion from The Wizard of Oz.
This song seems to be written from Wendy Darling’s perspective (of Peter Pan, as originally written in the JM Barrie play, then made into various films).
“My lost fearless leader” and “lost to the lost boy’s chapter of your life” refer to Peter’s adventures in Neverland as the boy who never grew up.
“My ribs get the feeling she did” refers to the biblical story of Adam & Eve, where woman was “born” of man’s rib.
May have been inspired by William Blake’s The Tyger and Three Things To Remember.
References Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and polymath. His most famous contributions include pioneering the scientific method. Taylor quotes Aristotle in cardigan: “a friend to all is a friend to none.”
“My spine split from carrying us up the hill” alludes to the story of the mythological Sisyphus, who was destined to keep pushing a boulder up the hill for eternity, only to have it roll back down.
“Oh, the tragedy” and “wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill” likely refer to Hamlet, the Shakespearean tragedy in which Ophelia drowns below the willow tree after her lover rejects and abandons her.
References Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in which a sailor is haunted by the ghost of an albatross he killed. It’s from this poem that the phrase “albatross hanging around your neck,” meaning a large burden, stems from.
“A rose by any other name is a scandal” is a play on a line from Romeo & Juliet: “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
A black dog, or hellhound, is the legend of a spectral canine who roams the moors of England & Scotland, mentioned in many different folktales.
Taylor may have been inspired by Nancy Mitford and her classic novel The Pursuit of Love. The plot of the novel follows two cousins, Linda Radlett and narrator Fanny Logan, as Linda navigates her chaotic and thrilling search for “true love.” Fanny’s mother is nicknamed “the bolter” for her habit of serial monogamy, and Linda falls into the same pattern.
“Poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand” seems to allude to Sleeping Beauty, the classic fairytale in which Aurora pricks her hand on the spinning wheel and falls into a poisoned sleep.
“Paperweight in shades of greige” likely alludes to Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus, a poem with a very similar message. In the poem, Plath described, “My right foot / A paperweight.”
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
Thematically references The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, about a two-faced protagonist who is not what he seems.
Name-checks poets (and fellow “tortured artists”) Dylan Thomas and Patti Smith.
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
The title is likely a mashup of the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Disney’s Who’s Afraid of The Big, Bad Wolf from The Three Little Pigs. The film adaptation of the play starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, whom Taylor also referenced in End Game.
“All you kids can sneak into my house with all the cobwebs” likely refers to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, in which children dare one another to approach Boo Radley’s house.
“You caged me and then you called me crazy / I am what I am ’cause you trained me” references similar themes as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstien, in which Dr Frankenstein creates a monster, then abhors what he’s created.
Taylor Swift Literary References: PDF List
If you want a handy guide, or a list to take with you to the library, here’s a printable PDF version just for you.
🎁 Need a Gift for a Swiftie? See my complete gifting guide HERE! 🎁
Did I Miss Anything?
If there’s something I didn’t catch, or just plain forgot, please email me, or message me on TikTok or Instagram. I’d love for this to be a masterlist of Taylor’s literary shout-outs!
Read More: Taylor Swift 101
Why is Taylor Swift So Popular?
Taylor Swift’s Songwriting Style & What Makes it Effective
Taylor Swift’s Use of Literary Devices, Explained
Read More: Theories, Themes & Easter Eggs
The Plotline of Taylor Swift: Her Ultimate Heroine’s Journey
What Will Happen After The Eras Tour? Ranking the Possibilities
