The argument here is a good one, but it's quite different from Green's, which purports to show that Swift is "important" based on the literary qualities of her lyrics.
If Green had written an article titled "Why Taylor Swift's songs are just as important as the performances given by early 19th-century Italian improvisatori," we would be having a very different conversation. (Probably a more interesting one!)
Great piece and thought provoking but hang on! Artistic works of the past largely do not receive “extra bonus points for being the past” unless they happen to fulfill a specific nostalgia (e.g. Christmas Music from the 40-50s).
Quite the contrary, they are punished by the passing of forgetful time, with a few exceptions needing to pass a gauntlet of greatness to be remembered.
Who remembers Spohr, or Quantz, or Salieri (if not for the movie Amadeus), or even the early symphonies of Mozart himself? They weren’t remarkable and largely perished with time despite being immensely popular in their day.
Perhaps some few of Swift’s works will endure, though I am skeptical. Rather our descendants will be surprised to find lesser lights burn on.
Thank you for taking my piece so seriously. I enjoyed this. Let me make one rebuttal… “No contemporary artist can possibly be obviously significant in the way a long-dead one can.” Not so! Many writers have been praised in exactly these terms and rightly so. The error Green and others make is to let popularity become a touchstone. Coleridge was acknowledged as significant in his life time but he wasn’t of Swiftian popularity, for example. It was quite clear at the time that T.S. Eliot was important in those terms. Many others too. Green’s effort is to elide popularism with ideas (the real distinction I am trying to make between Shelley and Swift). Ironically he is more a snob that I am: I say let Swift’s achievement be what it is; he feels the need to claim it as something “higher”…
I recently read Frankenstein and it was absolutely wonderful. Mary Shelley is a genius. I think she’d be into punk music.
The argument here is a good one, but it's quite different from Green's, which purports to show that Swift is "important" based on the literary qualities of her lyrics.
If Green had written an article titled "Why Taylor Swift's songs are just as important as the performances given by early 19th-century Italian improvisatori," we would be having a very different conversation. (Probably a more interesting one!)
Great piece and thought provoking but hang on! Artistic works of the past largely do not receive “extra bonus points for being the past” unless they happen to fulfill a specific nostalgia (e.g. Christmas Music from the 40-50s).
Quite the contrary, they are punished by the passing of forgetful time, with a few exceptions needing to pass a gauntlet of greatness to be remembered.
Who remembers Spohr, or Quantz, or Salieri (if not for the movie Amadeus), or even the early symphonies of Mozart himself? They weren’t remarkable and largely perished with time despite being immensely popular in their day.
Perhaps some few of Swift’s works will endure, though I am skeptical. Rather our descendants will be surprised to find lesser lights burn on.
Thank you for taking my piece so seriously. I enjoyed this. Let me make one rebuttal… “No contemporary artist can possibly be obviously significant in the way a long-dead one can.” Not so! Many writers have been praised in exactly these terms and rightly so. The error Green and others make is to let popularity become a touchstone. Coleridge was acknowledged as significant in his life time but he wasn’t of Swiftian popularity, for example. It was quite clear at the time that T.S. Eliot was important in those terms. Many others too. Green’s effort is to elide popularism with ideas (the real distinction I am trying to make between Shelley and Swift). Ironically he is more a snob that I am: I say let Swift’s achievement be what it is; he feels the need to claim it as something “higher”…