“It’s a Love Story”: Reading Roman Elegy through Taylor Swift

(2 Credits)

This course will explore two parallel bodies of work. The first is the extensive surviving writings of the Roman love elegists, in particular Catullus and Propertius. Both writers present apparently autobiographical accounts of their difficult relationships with their lovers. The second is the no less extensive works of the contemporary singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, which famously blend autobiography and fiction in her accounts of love relationships. The object of the course will be to compare them via close reading, and to explore how identical themes of love and betrayal emerge in different forms governed by changes in gender, class, and power relationships.