Taylor's Version - by Stephanie Burt (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Taylor Swift has become a peerless superstar, ceaselessly productive and internationally beloved. From her teen country debut to her world tour as the chair of the tortured poets department, Swift's career and her creations have captivated and bewitched us, opening up new ways to see both her life and our own. In Taylor's Version, the poet and literary scholar Stephanie Burt offers [a] ... critical appreciation of Taylor Swift, her body of work, and the community that her art has fostered. Drawing from her 2024 Harvard course ... as well as from her years as a Swiftie, Burt examines the purposes, talents, and energies Swift brings to her music and to her persona. She highlights the ways Swift's work remains at once intimate and relatable, portraying people we feel that we know and people we wish we could be, from the first loves and girlhoods on Fearless through the public and private angst of Midnights"--

Book Synopsis

A preeminent Harvard professor and poetry expert explains the artistry--and the celebrity--of Taylor Swift

"This is an outstanding look at one of the world's most beloved entertainers."―Kirkus (starred)

Taylor Swift has become a peerless superstar, ceaselessly productive and internationally beloved. From her teen country debut to her Eras tour and beyond, Swift's career and her creations have captivated and bewitched us, opening up new ways to see both her life and our own.

In Taylor's Version, the poet and literary scholar Stephanie Burt offers an insightful and heartfelt critical appreciation of Taylor Swift, her body of work, and the community that her art has fostered. Drawing from her 2024 Harvard course, Taylor Swift and Her World, as well as from her years as a Swiftie, Burt examines Swift's particular form of genius - not the destructive genius of tortured poets, but the collaborative and joyful genius of an artist who has mastered her craft. She highlights the ways Swift's work remains at once intimate and relatable, portraying people we feel that we know and people we wish we could be, from the first loves and girlhoods on Fearless through the public and private angst of Midnights. How does she do it (with a broken heart)?

Tracing a path through the Eras, Taylor's Version shows what Swift has created, how it works, and why her songs will endure.

Review Quotes

"Taylor's Version is hugely entertaining and fascinating, and will be especially for literature geeks and pop-culture fans. Burt isn't afraid of being critical, either, which is always welcome, and offers literary context to Swift that's easy to miss, especially if one is just a casual listener."--Buzz (UK)

Publishers Weekly (starred)

The Atlantic

Tom Perrotta, New York Times-bestselling author of Little Children

"Taylor Swift treats her own life as worthy of artistic obsession and grandeur; Stephanie Burt treats her oeuvre as worthy of academic and poetic attention.In Taylor's Version, Burt not only articulates the force of Swift's songwriting genius, but--perhaps more importantly--makes the case for her place in the literary tradition. A provocative, sharp, well-argued book for any Taylor Swift fan--or skeptic."--Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties

"Depending on your feelings toward Ms. Swift, you may or may not want to like this book. Too bad, it's going to make you like it, and see the phenomenon in a way you never have before."--Catherynne M. Valente, New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making

"Taylor Swift is lucky to have a fan, a listener, and a writer as open to her music and as acute to its internal and emotional rhythms, Swift's craft and her audience's response, as Stephanie Burt. With unfailing lucidity, empathy, and wit, she takes a reader through the songs, until you can hear, all over again, how they really work."--Greil Marcus, music journalist

"This is an outstanding look at one of the world's most beloved entertainers... a smart, incisive look at the singer-songwriter who has captured the world's imagination."--Kirkus (starred)

About the Author

Stephanie Burt is Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor of English at Harvard University. Her work appears in the New York Times Book Review, the New Yorker, and the London Review of Books, among others. Her other books of poetry and literary criticism--fourteen in all--include We Are Mermaids, Advice from the Lights, and Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems. She lives in Massachusetts.