The Swiftie and The Scholar

We did it! One album down, lots to go. Uncle Jerry takes us through alllllll the unifying themes, devices, questions, and more (13 to be exact) of the folklore album as a whole. Thanks for coming on this journey with us!

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Works Cited:
Sonnets from the Portuguese 20: Beloved, my Beloved, when I think – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
*Aurora Leigh: A Norton Critical Edition – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
*Morphology of the Folktale – V. Propp 
*The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales – Bruno Bettelheim
*Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion – Jack Zipes
*Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale – Jack Zipes
*The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales – Jack Zipes 
*The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: A Norton Critical Edition – Jack Zipes 
*Literary Theory: An Introduction – Terry Eagleton
*Witches, Ogres, and the Devil's Daughter: Encounters with Evil in Fairy Tales – Mario Jacoby, Verena Kast, Ingrid Riedel
*Retelling / Rereading: The Fate of Storytelling in Modern Times – Karl Kroeber 
*Linguistic Criticism – Roger Fowler
*From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers – Marina Warner
*No Go, the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling, and Making Mock – Marina Warner
[anyone lived in a pretty how town] – e.e. cummings
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird – Wallace Stevens
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Lore & Lyrics
Ulysses – James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
*Slaughter-House Five – Kurt Vonnegut
*The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
*Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Hilary Duff is trying to listen to the healthy part of her brain – Los Angeles Times
The Swiftie and The Scholar Grading Matrix

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Well, guys, we’ve really stressed Uncle Jerry out with this one. He went so deep on the folklore album as a whole that this episode focuses mostly on the prologue and how it sets up this new style of storytelling, different from all her previous albums. Hope you enjoy, and we’ll see you back here next week for Part 2!

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Works Cited:
*Starship Troopers – Robert A. Heinlein 
Folklore (Taylor Swift album)
*Shakespeare's Sonnets & Poems – William Shakespeare
*Sonnets from the Portuguese – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
*Astrophil and Stella – Sir Philip Sidney 
Semiotics
The Odyssey – Homer
Beowulf
Dryads
Hulder
Folklore prologue
Daddy – Sylvia Plath
Anecdote of the Jar – Wallace Stevens
The Swiftie and The Scholar Grading Matrix

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We’ve made it to the end of the folklore road! Join Uncle Jerry and Angela as they discuss this is me trying, where the duo finds some Typical Taylor, ambiguity, paradox, multiple meanings, and so much more. 
Come back for the next two weeks as we wrap-up discussion of the album as a whole.

Works Cited:
Couplets
Heroic couplets
Anaphora
Starship Troopers (1997)
Enjambment
Ellipsis
In medias res
The Odyssey – Homer
Caesura
Why I Write – Joan Didion
Simile
The Swiftie and The Scholar Grading Matrix

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Today we’re covering our penultimate folklore poem with Illicit Affairs. Uncle Jerry finds this song fits perfectly within the category of folklore, and shows us just how Taylor Swift’s use of language showcases the lack of love in this song.

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Works Cited:
Interlocutor
Imperative verb
Dramatic irony
The Book of Jonah
Synecdoche
The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost
Aphorism
Assonance
Alliteration
*The Pleasure of the Text – Roland Barthes
Anaphora
Synesthesia
Sonnet 138 – William Shakespeare
The Swiftie and The Scholar Grading Matrix

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Did we finally find Uncle Jerry’s least favorite folklore poem? And maybe Angela’s too? In this episode, we dissect Peace from Taylor Swift’s 2020 album, and Uncle Jerry finds many paradoxes and double meanings, while struggling to find a window to crawl through into the narrative. 

Works Cited:
Paradox
Apostrophe
Synecdoche
I Would Die 4 U – Prince
You’ve Got a Friend in Me – Randy Newman
Easy Silence – The Chicks
Two Sleepy People – Fats Waller
Stuck in the Middle With You – Stealers Wheel
You Are My Sunshine – Jimmie Davis 
Standing In The Rain – John Paul Young
Standing In The Rain – Al Green
Standing In The Rain – Electric Light Orchestra
The Swiftie and The Scholar Grading Matrix

Follow Us:
Patreon
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⁠Angela’s Instagram⁠
Uncle Jerry’s Instagram
Angela’s YouTube Channel