The Swiftie and The Scholar

Join us today for some lighthearted fun as we discuss Opalite from 2025’s The Life of a Showgirl. When Taylor Swift made this song a single and gave us the most perfect music video in the history of music videos, I felt like we had to cover it. 
Be on the lookout for more Opalite content on Patreon!

Works Cited:
How to Write a Dizain 
Iambs
Trochees
Pluperfect tense
Possession – A.S. Byatt – Aff Link
About Time (2013)
Brooklyn (2015)

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In this episode, we are taking a trip through the wildest winter with evermore from 2020. Uncle Jerry once again blows Angela’s mind with some folklore tropes relating to the dog days, and with some tidbits about Carl Jung’s theory on the Anima.
If you’d like to see us listen to the song and enjoy the episode ad-free, you can now join us on Patreon!
Works Cited:
Cats (2019)
Fats Waller
Apostrophe literary device
Gerard Manley Hopkins
William Somerset Maugham
The Burning of Lord Byron’s Memoirs
Emily Dickinson – burned letters
Jane Austen – burned letters
Charles Dickens Bonfire
The Hero with a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell – Aff Link
Carl Jung
The Anima
The Raven – Edgar Allan Poe
Sonnet 29 – William Shakespeare
Evermore lyric video
Evermore x Peter Mashup
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In this episode, we are learning all about Cassandra from Greek Mythology, and Cassandra, the Taylor Swift song. Uncle Jerry teaches us Cassandra’s story, we dive into all the rich metaphors, and Angela spills the beans about Taylor’s Kim and Kanye feud. There’s also an existential moment where Angela can’t deal with the question of one universal truth versus many personal truths.

Works Cited:
Taylor Swift and Kanye West Feud
Cassandra in Greek Mythology
The Iliad – Homer
The Odyssey – Homer
The Aeneid – Virgil
Oresteia – Aeschylus
The Greek Myths Box Edition – Robert Graves – Aff Link
The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition – Robert Graves – Aff Link
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad – Aff Link
Sight Rhyme (or Eye Rhyme)
Seneca's Agamemnon
Cassandra Lyric Video
Concrete PoetryThe Cassandra Complex
The Apollo Archetype

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Affairs and graves and Emily Dickinson, oh my! Today, we are slowly meandering through Taylor Swift’s 202 poem, ivy. This track from evermore is full of ambiguous symbols, double meanings, and beautiful poetic elements. Uncle Jerry walks us through his many interpretations, and Angela’s brain short circuits through it all.

Compassion – Miller Williams
The Ways We Touch – Miller Williams – Aff link
Down Where The Spirit Meets the Bone – Lucinda Williams
Because I could not stop for Death – Emily Dickinson
Porphyria’s Lover – Robert Browning
Paradise Lost – John Milton
Dickinson – Apple TV
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson – Aff Link
Poem #14 – Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson – Cynthia Griffin Wolff – Aff Link
Instagram reel from @davidkristianp

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We’re off to Rhode Island by way of St. Louis in this episode! We’re breaking down Taylor Swift’s ‘the last great american dynasty’, a track from 2020’s folklore and the final song she submitted for induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Uncle Jerry explains how his opinion on this poem changed from his first few readings, and Angela talks through her thoughts on the five submitted songs as a whole and why she thinks Taylor chose them.

Works Cited:
Blue Blood – Craig Unger
A Rose for Emily – William Faulkner
Rebekah Harkness’ Starfish Brooch
The Outrageous Life of Rebekah Harkness, Taylor Swift’s High-Society Muse – Elise Taylor
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald – Aff Link
The 100 Best Songs of 2020 – Pitchfork
Jacob’s Pillow
the last great american dynasty lyric video

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