Angela & Uncle Jerry examine how Taylor Swift's 'New Romantics' draws on the sociocultural movement of New Romanticism from the late 1970s and 1980s, connecting the song's themes of self-expression, embracing flaws, and club culture to the Blitz Kids, androgyny, and the anti-hero.
Key Insights
Uncle Jerry connects New Romanticism as a sociocultural movement that responded to punk rock and post-war economic malaise in England, paralleling how Romanticism responded to neoclassicism. The song is read as an anthem of self-expression and embracing the anti-hero — acknowledging one's flaws (scarlet letters) and dancing through them. Angela & Uncle Jerry identify multiple potential musical allusions including the Ramones' 'Road to Ruin' album, Gary Glitter's 'Come On, Come On,' the Eurythmics' 'Sweet Dreams,' and possibly Ace of Base. The song's use of anaphora with the repeated 'we' is highlighted as a unifying device that places everyone in the movement together, similar to Churchill's wartime rhetoric. Uncle Jerry notes the song's strong connection to queer theory through its themes of androgyny, open self-expression, and 'switching sides like a record changer.'
Literary Analysis
Uncle Jerry frames the episode by connecting Romanticism (discussed in the previous episode on 'the lakes') to New Romanticism as successive sociocultural movements that respond to prior cultural conditions, neoclassicism giving way to Romanticism, and punk/post-war malaise giving way to New Romanticism. He applies the concept of the anti-hero (citing Clint Eastwood, Huck Finn, Jay Gatsby, Severus Snape, Artemis Fowl) to the song's ethos of embracing one's flaws while still being heroic. The literary analysis focuses on the density of metaphor (trains, scarlet letters, classroom, castle, bricks, battle, national anthem), simile ('like a battle,' 'like a dream,' 'like a record changer'), anaphora (the repeated 'we' in verse one), caesura (the commas creating rhythmic breaks), and internal rhyme in couplets (AABBCCDD). Uncle Jerry identifies the Scarlet Letter allusion as an acknowledgement of shared damage. He notes the twisted cliché of 'the best people in life are free' (from 'the best things in life are free') and 'too busy dancing to get knocked off our feet.' The queer theory reading is sustained throughout, with 'road to ruin' (to be ruined = to be gay in queer culture), androgyny, and 'switching sides' all feeding into the New Romantics' ethos of open self-expression.
Concepts Explored
Literary Quotes Referenced
Caroline Lamb on Lord Byron: 'mad
bad
and dangerous to know.' Churchill's speech: 'we will fight them on the beaches
we will fight them in the streets
we will fight them on the hills.'
People & Figures Mentioned
Connections Across the Work
Shared themes appear across the archive
Recommended Reading
Sweet Dreams: The Story of the New Romantics; Heartbreak Is the National Anthem
In the Archive
In the archive:
New RomanticsView song →3 themes traced
12 motifs traced
22 literary devices explored
4 literary references noted