Is Taylor Swift Our Greatest Living Poet?
Teach Me A Lesson with Greg James and Bella Mackie
BBC
4.8 • 957 Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2022
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Following the release of her latest album, 'Midnights', Greg and Bella find out if Taylor Swift is a great poet, as well as a great songwriter.
English teacher Miss Tiddy is a Taylor Swift superfan, with an encyclopedic knowledge of Taylor Swift's music (and dating history!). In this lesson, she'll use techniques familiar from English Language GCSE to dissect Taylor's lyrics, such as assonance, alliteration and pathetic fallacy. With the help of Shakespearean actor Olivia Vinall, Taylor's lyrics are brought to life and put under the microscope by Miss Tiddy - are Taylor's songs just nice words strung together, or are they actually poetry? Fellow Swiftie Jeremy Vine pops by to host a game of Taylor Swift vs Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Miss Tiddy continues the comparison to the greats by looking at the similarities between Taylor and Lord Byron, Wordsworth, Robert Frost and Shakespeare.
Bad students of all ages are welcome. Expect brilliant teachers, captivating subjects but absolutely no homework.
Get in touch with the podcast - email us at teachme@bbc.co.uk
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | How many people who have been on the FBI's most wanted list have ever sat down for a |
| 0:06.0 | podcast with the BBC? For over a decade a pair of mug shots have lived side |
| 0:12.2 | by side on the FBI's website. |
| 0:14.7 | These individuals are considered as terrorists. |
| 0:17.4 | In 2005, they were called the number one domestic terror threat in America. |
| 0:22.6 | Estimates are a quarter billion dollars in damages. |
| 0:25.1 | The cause of their alleged terrorist actions, the environment. |
| 0:29.2 | Our purpose was direct action to disrupt environmental destruction. |
| 0:34.8 | How far is too far to go to stop the planet burning? |
| 0:38.6 | If it's not me, then it's who? |
| 0:40.2 | If it's not now, then it's wet. Burn wild. Find us now on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:47.0 | BBC Sounds. |
| 0:48.0 | BBC Sounds. Music Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:52.0 | By the end of this podcast, we're going to answer the question, |
| 0:55.0 | is Taylor Swift our greatest living poet? |
| 0:59.3 | I reckon we can get Taylor Swift to listen to this episode. |
| 1:01.4 | Can you slide into her diems and send it to her? |
| 1:03.0 | Sure. |
| 1:04.0 | I'm Greg James. |
| 1:10.0 | I'm Bella Mackie. |
| 1:12.0 | And this is Teach Me Lesson the podcast where we invite |
| 1:15.2 | brilliant teachers from across the UK to teach us their favorite lesson today. |
... |
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