“Baby, We Are the New Romantics”
Taylor Swift, C. S. Lewis, and Our Longing for More
I’m working to establish a steady rhythm in my writing. From now on, Fridays will be reserved for essays like this one—exploring culture, history, and philosophy, and how they intersect with faith.
This may be controversial, but I believe Taylor Alison Swift is one of the finest lyricists of our time. This is not a blanket endorsement of her entire discography or worldview, but rather an invitation to reflect. In her 2014 album 1989, she released a track titled “New Romantics”—a phrase that, whether knowingly or not, gestures toward a rich literary heritage.
As I’ve written in a previous article, Christians have at least three faithful ways to engage with culture:
Reject – If a song stirs up temptation, pride, lust, or envy—walk away (James 1:14–15). If your conscience is troubled, trust it (Romans 14:23).
Respond – Engage the lyrics critically. What is being said about identity, love, heartbreak, or truth? Does it align with or contradict the gospel?
Redeem – Use popular culture as a bridge. If everyone is talking about her tour or a certain song, it may be an opportunity to bear witness to something deeper.
In this article, I want to respond—not with a critique of her music as such, but with a reflection on the surprising continuity between Taylor Swift and the Romantic literary movement of the 18th and 19th centuries and what believers can and should take away from this.
Romantic Echoes in Swift’s Lyrics
Swift is not just a clever songwriter—she is clearly a reader of literature. Her lyrics frequently echo themes and images from the Romantic and Gothic traditions:
William Wordsworth and the Lake Poets
“The Lakes” (Folklore Bonus Track)
Swift’s longing for artistic solitude in this track directly references Wordsworth—“What are my Wordsworths?”—and evokes the ethos of the Lake Poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey). She yearns for “a place where the poets went to die,” echoing Romantic ideals of beauty, nature, and escape from industrial clamor.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“The Albatross” (TTPD Anthology)
This poem echoes The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The albatross—a symbol of guilt and burden—is reimagined as the narrator herself. Rather than being punished for killing it, she is treated as the burden. This is Romantic supernaturalism turned inward.
The Brontë Sisters
Swift’s themes often echo Gothic Romanticism. In “Tolerate It,” emotional neglect recalls Jane Eyre’s dignified suffering. “My Tears Ricochet” and “Champagne Problems” feel haunted—love that lingers like a ghost. “Closure” channels the restrained fury beneath Victorian manners. These are Brontë themes set to melody.
All of this reveals that Swift’s lyrics are shaped by more than image or marketing. The stereotype of her as a shallow pop star collapses under the literary depth of her work.
The Romantic Tradition and Lewis’s Longing
Romanticism elevated emotion, imagination, and nature as reactions against the cold rationalism of the Enlightenment. Gothic Romanticism added intensity, melancholy, and the supernatural. While not always orthodox in belief, the Romantics were deeply attuned to the ache of the human soul—what C. S. Lewis called Sehnsucht, or longing.
Lewis loved the Romantics. He read Wordsworth and Coleridge voraciously. He once described The Prelude as a “spiritual autobiography” of someone who, though not a Christian, expressed a hunger that pointed beyond the self. In his book Surprised by Joy, Lewis describes his own encounters with “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.”
“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them... they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.”
— C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
He even referred to himself as “a converted Romantic,” arguing that the very act of longing for beauty or transcendence is itself a pointer toward God.
Swift’s lyrics, whether intentionally or not, tap into the same longing. Songs like “Enchanted,” “You’re on Your Own, Kid,” “All Too Well (10-Minute Version),” and “Cardigan” are drenched in a wistfulness for something lost or unreachable. Her metaphors—storms, oceans, gardens, ghosts—reflect an inner ache that is not purely aesthetic. They are, in Lewis’s words, “signposts” pointing toward a reality beyond themselves. While her longing appears rooted in the earthly realm, like that of many Romantic poets and writers, the heavenly reality inevitably bleeds through. As John Calvin wrote, we all possess a sensus divinitatis—a sense of the divine. We can repress or redirect it, but we cannot escape it. Made in His image, we reflect Him, and even in our brokenness, that reflection still shines through.
The Longing That Leads Home
So what does this mean for the Christian?
First, it reminds us that longing is not inherently bad. In fact, longing may be one of the most powerful witnesses to the gospel. Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God has “put eternity into man’s heart.” We long because we were made for a world we have not yet seen.
Romans 8:23 says, “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” The ache is not weakness. It is homesickness.
C. S. Lewis believed that when rightly understood, longing was not escapism, but evangelism. It awakens us to our need. It prepares us for joy.
Swift’s music may not answer that longing—but it names it. And that, in itself, can be a doorway.
So the next time you hear someone humming a Taylor Swift song, maybe ask them what they think it means to long for something more. You might find you’re both yearning for the same Kingdom.