Are modern lyricists the New Romantics?
Discussion
I’ve recently been flummoxed during a conversation with my eldest granddaughter. It started about the Romantic poets but went on to writers generally, particularly from the 18thC.
In essence, the question put to me was what would the bulk of them be doing in the 2020s. What would Shelley, Dickens and Cobbett be producing now that poetry isn’t the fare of the upper class maidens and books seem to have little place for radicals and humanitarians.
What got to me as a kid was for English Lit. we studied Shelley, shoveling each poem into the ditch of what each one means, ironically at a time of Dylan. A few years later Joni Mitchell was pushing out some of the most wondrous lyrics imaginable.
If we take one of the best-selling singer/songwriters, Taylor Swift, who has been dismissed for merely documenting her life in song (like some of Mitchell’s), but if that gives rise to ‘This is me trying’ then why not? It's brilliant.
So are modern lyricists the New Romantics? Are those who are involved in documentary and filmmaking the new Dickens and Cobbett?
In essence, the question put to me was what would the bulk of them be doing in the 2020s. What would Shelley, Dickens and Cobbett be producing now that poetry isn’t the fare of the upper class maidens and books seem to have little place for radicals and humanitarians.
What got to me as a kid was for English Lit. we studied Shelley, shoveling each poem into the ditch of what each one means, ironically at a time of Dylan. A few years later Joni Mitchell was pushing out some of the most wondrous lyrics imaginable.
If we take one of the best-selling singer/songwriters, Taylor Swift, who has been dismissed for merely documenting her life in song (like some of Mitchell’s), but if that gives rise to ‘This is me trying’ then why not? It's brilliant.
So are modern lyricists the New Romantics? Are those who are involved in documentary and filmmaking the new Dickens and Cobbett?
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