Is Taylor Swift Our Greatest Living Poet?

Following the release of her latest album, 'Midnights', Greg and Bella find out if Taylor Swift is a great poet, as well as a great songwriter. English teacher Miss Tiddy is a Taylor Swift superfan, with an encyclopedic knowledge of Taylor Swift's music (and dating history!). In this lesson, she'll use techniques familiar from English Language GCSE to dissect Taylor's lyrics, such as assonance, alliteration and pathetic fallacy. With the help of Shakespearean actor Olivia Vinall, Taylor's lyrics are brought to life and put under the microscope by Miss Tiddy - are Taylor's songs just nice words strung together, or are they actually poetry? Fellow Swiftie Jeremy Vine pops by to host a game of Taylor Swift vs Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Miss Tiddy continues the comparison to the greats by looking at the similarities between Taylor and Lord Byron, Wordsworth, Robert Frost and Shakespeare. Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework. Get in touch with the podcast - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk

You can listen to Is Taylor Swift Our Greatest Living Poet? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Is Taylor Swift Our Greatest Living Poet? is an episode from Teach Me A Lesson with Greg James and Bella Mackie by BBC.

This episode is 42:50 long.

This episode was published on Nov 7, 2022.

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