The department of English and World Languages has shifted from into its Reputation and Lover eras in continuation with the countdown to Taylor Swift’s newest album The Tortured Poets Department.
Reputation (2017) is Swift’s first album with an edgy and rock and roll sound that sends off the message of confidence within herself that is powerful enough to gain revenge against her enemies. Other themes off of this album include identity, transformation, growth, resilience, and commentary on media criticism. Some key songs from Reputation include “Look What You Made Me Do,” “Getaway Car,” “Delicate,” and “Don’t Blame Me.”
Lover (2019) takes on a completely opposite tone, as it pulls from her personal life by focusing on romantic, long-term love, as well as facing adult issues such as change and loneliness. The album is a bubble gum pop collection of experiences that make listeners reflect on life as a whole, as it tells us that our past does not define our future. Key songs from this album include “Lover,” “Cruel Summer,” “The Man,” “The Archer,” and “False God.”
You may be in your Reputation era too if you:
- Are Not afraid to take a risk
- Love making multimodal media projects
- Have an unbroken streak on Wordle
- Know the power of peer-review
- Always grabs the latest issue of The Snapper
You may be in your Lover era too if you:
- Speaks your ideas into existence
- Like to reenact scenes in Shakespeare class
- Are a hopeless romantic (but expects a little tragedy)
- Practice self love
- Are a member of GSA
Faculty and Staff in their Reputation and 1989 Eras:
Dr. Craven is in her Reputation era because she loves to challenge students to make bold decisions – so that no matter what her students do they’ll be “ready for it.”
GA Heather is in her Lover era because she has loved every moment being a GA for the ENWL department! Working with Dr. P and Becca everyday has been a “golden” and sparkling experience.
Reputation is filled with unexpected literary connections. Some included are:
- The song “Delicate” can be connected to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel This Side of Paradise with the quote of “we’re all delicate here, you know.”
- “So It Goes” connects to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter House Five, as the phrase is used 106 times in the novel, as it is associated with death and mortality
- Fan favorite “Getaway Car” references Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities with the first line of “it was the best of times the worst of crimes.”
Although not a direct connection, fans have associated the song “I Think He Knows” to Anne and Gilbert’s relationship from the 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables, which has been adapted into a tv series on Netflix.