Taylor and Emily: Madwomen in Attics 150 Years Apart

 by Hamish Critchley

In 2020 - while most of us were waiting for our world of empty pavements and idle planes to accept us again - Taylor Swift was writing miles of lyrical poetry, sung over acoustic instrumentals, and creating her own world of escapism - forming the albums ‘folklore’ and ‘evermore’. A teacher had, I think jokingly at the time, suggested a connection between Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson - a thought which I dismissed at the time. But upon reading some of Dickinson's poetry months later it struck me just how Dickinsonian Taylor's most recent albums are. 

Gilbert-and-Gubar argue Emily Dickinson became a ‘mad woman in the attic’ - after Charlotte Brontës infamous Bertha Antoinetta Rochester, locked in a room on the third floor by her husband - both ironically as a deliberate interpretation in her poetry and a truly mad woman as an agoraphobic trapped in her fathers Amherst, Massachusetts house. Living in lockdown. Taylor Swift even modernises the ‘mad woman’ in her song of the same name. G&G also states ‘Dickinson's life became a kind of novel or narrative poem’ and whilst Taylor Swift's life of fame and riches doesn't exactly align to Dickinsons anonymous isolated life, she reveals aspects of her life through her songs. Fantastical filters placed over her life, able to see through if you look hard enough.

One specific comparison that came out to me was ‘seven’ from folklore and Dickinsons ‘A narrow Fellow in the Grass’.‘Seven’ features a speaker reminiscing about a childhood friend - ignorant to their underlying trauma and abuse - whilst ‘Fellow in the Grass’ centres around a child's perception of a snake. They both suggest a Wordsworthian view that children are connected to nature, more so than adults. In ‘seven’, the speaker recalls ‘screaming ferociously’ - the animalistic language suggesting they used to let out anger like a wild animal. And ‘ferociously’ forms a rhyming couplet with ‘civility’ furthering the suggestion that when we grow up into civility, we lose a certain natural emotional recklessness. The song begins ‘please picture me in the trees’ - a begging to be remembered as a connection to the environment of the children, but it also implies there to be something else to be remembered for in the future. Or perhaps it is the speaker longing for their own return to childhood and to their friend. The same plea is repeated in the second verse with a slight change - ‘please picture me in the weeds’. The downwards movement from ‘trees’ to ‘weeds’ suggests a growing restriction and lack of freedom - following the poem itself, it implies that the children are becoming less connected to nature. This is continued by the connotations of deception in ‘weeds’ as the speaker seems to be hiding. It also builds on the intimacy between the subject and the speaker, as they place them in the weeds together. Dickinson’s narrator in ‘A narrow Fellow in the Grass’,  states that ‘Several of Nature's People / I know, and they know me’ and the personification of animals suggests the speaker views the natural world to be akin to that of the human; connected and combined. Yet in this line also lies a degree of separation as the naming of ‘Nature's People’ implies that there are those who are not Nature's people, a division which is continued through the next line - established through the use of the personal and then impersonal plural pronouns. The ambiguity in the line suggests that the connection with nature was an experience unique to childhood, and the bond is lost as you grow up. As the speaker in ‘seven’ questions ‘are there still beautiful things?’ as they too have lost their link to nature from their movement to civility.

Dickinson’s ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’ and Swifts ‘my tears ricochet’ both depict funerals for a death of identity. Dickinson’s poem identifies the funeral in her brain as an ambiguous loss of sanity. The ambiguity and convolutedness of the poem reinforces a loss of reason. Whilst the poem maintains a motif of monotony - first the treading of the mourners, then the service beating, and finally in the falling from reason ‘down, and down’. Monotony and repetitive noises often have connotations of insanity. In addition, the first line is strange; it is unclear who or what the funeral is for. If the funeral, and its monotony, is a symptom of insanity - then the funeral can not be for a loss of reason. This would imply that loss, or possibly grief as it is a funeral, can cause a form of insanity. Or is capable of breaking a ‘Plank in Reason’, which she falls through, leaving reason behind. ‘My tears ricochet’ is probably one of the most complex songs off folklore; its ambiguity makes it very hard to pin down - sharing this quality with ‘I felt a Funeral’. The song centres around a ghost, present at their own funeral. It's haunting and evocative - worthy of the track 5 spot. Taylors music had been sold a year prior to this song's writing and the funeral is arguably a loss of artistic identity as well as a death of trust. At one point she almost screams at the subject (presumably Scott Borchetta) ‘you hear my stolen lullaby’, at night when they can't sleep. The juxtaposition between the soft, vulnerable ‘lullaby’ and ‘stolen’ suggests a conflict between the ghost and the subject. Conflict is also expressed in the militaristic language used in ‘the battleships will sink beneath the waves’, and ‘Aim for my heart’. Furthermore, the juxtaposition in the title itself continues the motif of conflict, and suggests that the subject is the one suffering for the pain they put the speaker through. The gothic image of someone at their own funeral, haunting their tormentor - creates a personal and intimate condemnation of the subject. A song of betrayal over Borchetta selling her music, and a letter of grief to the man who stole it.

Emily Dickinson and Taylor Swift are an unlikely pairing, but more closely linked then I first thought to believe. It’s even rumoured Taylor’s song ‘ivy’ is about Emily’s possible love affair with her sister in law. But both of the women, when faced with isolation and containment, produced lyrics and poetry reflecting their losses and lives. Madwomen in their attics, scribbling 150 years apart.